


Sir Tony’s Apprentice

by Weaselwoman



Series: Sir Tony's Apprentice [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate History, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Engineers Make Things Go Boom, F/M, Growing Up, Horses, M/M, Middle Ages, Slavery, Warning: mangled Christianity, Warnings for threats, Y1K
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 22:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 19
Words: 26,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2325299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weaselwoman/pseuds/Weaselwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tony’s share of the loot from the sack of Asgard included several items of sufficiently advanced technology (indistinguishable from magic); the unburnt remains of Asgard’s library; and a bluish-pale dark haired servant boy (slave is such a harsh word)."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Sack of Asgard

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** This will be a slow story to write and upload. The muse gave me the first sentence (see summary) a few months ago and mainly hints since then. The Varangians--Viking troops of the Byzantine empire--overlapped in time with the Crusades and the Age of Chivalry, and the Chinese invention of gunpowder, and various other things included herein (about 1000 AD/CE). I'll try to keep the anachronisms to a minimum, but no promises!
> 
> Also a **warning** : Tony makes colorful and explicit threats. Be warned.

Tony’s share of the loot from the sack of Asgard included several items of sufficiently advanced technology (indistinguishable from magic); the unburnt remains of Asgard’s library; and a bluish-pale dark haired servant boy (slave is such a harsh word).

Odin the king was dead. Tony’s fellow Avengers (that’s what they called themselves) had split the living Royals between them: Queen Frigga for the berserker Bruce, an otherwise gentle man; Sif for Captain Steve, a warrior to tame a warrior; the healer Eir for brittle-boned Clint, their finest archer; and the golden-haired child Thor to Lady Natasha, red in hair and deed (she might coddle him or sacrifice him—none of the others cared, or dared, to ask). Which left Sir Tony Hovarthson without a worthy prize; so he’d gone at dawn to the marketplace, where the Shieldsmen had corralled the remaining Asgardian citizens, and chosen from the pen a shivering dark-haired child, the only one who resembled him among the blond masses.

Who _argued_ with him. “Would you not prefer a sturdy peasant child? Look, I have a fever”—he did: lively movements, dancing green eyes, his arm hot when grabbed—and Tony sighed.

“Listen, brat, do you understand their fate? What yours would be if I hadn’t taken you? Imagine the worst; _then_ argue.”

“Oh,” the child said, eyes down; then daring a look at him: “And mine will be better?”

Tony grinned. “Depends on you.” Negotiations he could deal with; those, and mechanics, were his role in the Avengers.

 

He brought the child to his tent, washed off some of the visible grime. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Hearthfire.”

“No; that doesn’t suit you.”

Pale, pale skin; dark tarnished hair; eyes like two green gems set in … “Silver. Your name is now Silver.”

“As you will,” said the boy, subservient and courtly.

 

Silver indeed had a fever, and spent the next few days asleep in Tony’s red-and-gold silk tent (for Tony loved the Orient and all its products: spices and languages and damascened steel and especially the cool feel of silk). The boy muttered occasionally in his sleep, never coherent; and sometimes woke himself up from nightmares with a shout. Perhaps his previous life had been worse than even the siege had been. Tony wandered the smoking ruins of the palace, the Shieldsman Sir James of Rhodes with him to watch over the few palace servants he had commandeered to carry his discoveries. (When he found other Shieldsmen collecting papyrus scrolls for tinder, he’d let out a screech, dashed to their leader Nicholas the Fury, and successfully collected most of them back. Any paper with writing, however indecipherable, was _his_ , dammit.) He probed the piles of residue with a pointed stick, searching for metal, and chose one of the few intact buildings in Asgard in which to store his treasures.

 

Within a few days, the troops had exhausted their blood-and-other lusts; the Asgard folk—fewer now, branded and sore—harvested grain and firewood, cooked meals, built wide wagons to Tony’s specifications, and gathered food, wine, and loot for their conquerors to take away. Odin’s golden throne—gold leaf, in fact, the ornate carvings all repoussé —had been hacked and hammered into flat plates, and divided between the company and the Avengers; otherwise, Odin’s “golden kingdom” was proving to be disappointingly lacking in gold, and value would have to be taken by other means.

 

Growls and screams came regularly from Captain Steve’s red and blue tent; whenever he appeared (which was seldom), he sported various cuts and bruises—a split lip, a black eye—and a beaming smile. Who was taming whom between him and Sif became a betting matter.

Clint had inherited his faded tent from Captain Steve, after a former (and unfortunate) bedmate had tried to wash it, running the colors together; but Clint and his healer (and his frequent Shieldsman companions, as he was lately promoted from that company) did not mind its motley look. The tent smelled of Eir’s drying herbs.

Lady Natasha’s tent was deep red, and set beyond the hearing of the rest of the troops; in the center of the Shieldsmen’s camp, Nicholas the Fury had an old Moroccan tent, of once-black goathair, which he claimed was the coolest of all.

 

Aide-de-camp Coulson of the Shieldsmen, outside his tent checkered in black and blazing white, sat in the shade of a tree at his portable desk, alternately tallying and chewing thoughtfully on the quill of his pen. Tony walked by, training Silver to accept a neck collar and a leash. Stopped. “What do we need?”

“Soldiers,” said Coulson.

“Had to kill ‘em all. Too much honor.” The elder princes smothered in rugs (and Lady Natasha has the remaining one). The rest of the troops strangled, disgraced by a bloodless death. None would go to Valhalla.

“Any prospects?”

“Nick’s checking them out. I’ll go too; sometimes his focus is a bit narrow.”

The remaining Asgardians had been gathered from their tasks to the dirt of the large training field. They formed their own social clumps. In torn finery, the former leaders of the community: mayor, sheriff, priest, teacher, healer. In handwoven linen or leather aprons, the crafts-men and –women, their tools left behind. Heterae, singers, and dancers, much the worse for wear, in formerly bright colors. Innkeepers, storekeepers, and accountants. Farmers and laborers, farmwives and children.

Nicholas the Fury beheld them all from a low platform, his remaining eye sharp. Clint and an armed Shieldsman, Jasper, were going through the crowd, now roughly pulling one aside, now pushing at another man, testing his mettle. Once a few dozen (nearly all men) had been pulled to the side, Clint inspected their teeth.

“The soldiers of Asgard kept you from earning your own glory!” Nicholas shouted at the selected few.

A quiet correction from the boy at Tony’s side: “Einherjar. They were Einherjar.”

“Were you going to be one?” Tony asked in an equally low voice.

“No,” said Silver. “Never.”

“Would you like to fight?” Nicholas shouted. The chosen men and women growled agreement.

“For us?” And they were suddenly silent.

One steps forward: a burly man with a damaged arm, probably a veteran. “Never,” he says, and spits. Jasper runs him through with a spear.

“Who agrees with him?” the Fury demands, and another five—four men and a woman, aged, all comrades—step forward. “Your city is gone. Your rulers are dead without honor. Fight for us, and prosper with us; fight against us, and die.”

The five reply in order: “I die,” with a spit at the Fury; Clint and Jasper alternate at spearing them.

With a tug at the boy’s leash, Tony walked to Nick the Fury and said, “You’re only making martyrs. If they die bloody, they go to Valhalla.”

“You get ‘em on our side, then,” the Fury said.

Avengers negotiator, right. Tony stepped onto the platform, pulling his servant to stand near its edge. Nicholas stepped aside.

“Listen,” Tony yelled. “We’re leaving soon. When we go, we’re burning this place to the ground. We’re sowing the ground with salt. We’re breaking the canals. The only direction you can go will be the one that we take: the rest of the land will be salted bogs. And we will scorch the earth behind us. You still have families. Travel with us, or starve to death. There is no honor in that.”

“Does Prince Thor live?” asked a voice from the huddled main crowd.

Odd: the boy beside Tony flinched at the question. Tony looked at Nicholas, who nodded.

“Yes!” Tony relayed.

A tall woman in soiled velvet walked forward. “Then we will come with you.”

“Do you all agree?” Tony asked the crowd.

“Yes!”

“Then return to your labors.”

Tony stepped off the box, gave his leashed captive a tug. The boy gave a small start: perhaps he’d been lost in thought.

“This is a rabble,” Nicholas told Tony. “They are not an army we can wield.”

“Yet,” said Tony.

 

Nat in her red samite tent; a bed of squirrel furs, a cloak of sables. She’s washing herself in a golden basin held up by her child servant; Tony had left _his_ servant child in his red-and-gold tent, tied to the center-pole with a knot Gordius would have been proud of. Nat’s Thor does not tremble as he holds the heavy basin.

She glances at him, motions Tony outside with her eyes. “There’s pestilence brewing here,” he tells her. “Once we blow the last dam the bad air will move in.”

“I’m ready to go,” she says.

“We have more carts for the children and old people,” he says. “Never overlook hostage value. But Cap wants another one for his loot and his hell-cat; then Bruce wants another, with springs, for _delicate_ Frigga; and Clint wants Eir’s medicines, and Nick and Maria—thank God they’ve got each other—want a tent full of carpets, and the Shieldsmen want…”

“We need more horses, then. My Thor says he knows where they pastured.”

“He’s talking now?”

“I didn’t tell him his mother lives. He thinks I’m all he has.” She frowned. “Well, almost…”

“Almost?”

“He says his youngest brother left the keep, the night before the attack. He’s convinced his brother is still alive.”

“Right. Hide a blond kid among the rest of them. Ask your Thor to point him out, and we’ll winkle him out of the crowd.”

 

Tony returned to his tent, where the rope leash had been neatly untied. His former captive was gone.

“Son of a bitch!”

 

 

There was a commotion at the far side of the camp, at Bruce’s green double tent. Two Shieldsmen were pulling the ragged dark-haired boy from a pair of half-seen womanly arms, while the boy’s high screams echoed against Bruce’s bellows of rage. Tony came running.

“She’s mine! You know she’s mine!” Bruce ranted; turning to Tony: “You’re not to touch her!”

“Calm, Bruce, calm.” Even though Tony was not as relaxed as he sounded, and somewhat winded from his run. “Just here to pick up my runaway.”

The boy was quivering, lips and eyes held stiff against crying. Tony cuffed him anyway, and pulled him away by his neck.

“I said”—yank!—“your fate would depend on you”—a shake—“didn’t I, Silver?”

“Yes,” the boy finally said, sullenly.

“My tent. Now.”

 

Where Tony tied him to the pole with a still more complicated knot, then rinsed his face with a wet rag and gave him a cooling bowl of stew.

“You served her, right? _Was_ she your mistress?”

Silver looked at him, answered between gulps. “Yes.”

“Your loyalty is commendable, then. But she belongs to Sir Bruce, eh? And you, miserable brat, are _what I took_ because I had no _royal_ hostage. So you belong to _me_ , now. Capishe?”

Silver looked at him blankly.

“Get it?”

Still a blank look.

“Do you understand me?” Tony roared, almost at Bruce’s timbre.

“…Yes.”

 

The next morning, Tony decided that Silver was no longer carrying a fever; he made the boy wash himself all over with the rags of his clothes and soapy water, then gave him Tony’s own outgrown silk shirt to wear. (And a sarong, for now, for the lack of pants.) Again into the collar (removed for his bath), on the leash, and accompanying Tony for the next scrounging expedition. _The kid had been the Queen’s servant, he should know where the goodies were kept._ Sir James gathered the usual palace servants to go with them; the boy gave them an out-thrust tongue and an odd, pointed stare. They muttered among themselves.

“Your brat’s putting on airs,” said Sir James.

“Eh, _former_ airs. He’s property now; they all are,” said Tony, unconcerned. “Silver! Where would you go for treasure?”

“What kind?” said the boy.

“Something we haven’t found yet,” Tony said. They turned a corner, faced the ruins of the castle.

“Perhaps the foundation stones?” The little shit arched one eyebrow. “You seem to have the rest.”

“Any cellars?”

“Let me look.” With his leash running free behind him, young Silver was a questing hound, orienting himself to the ruin, pacing, climbing over the low remnants of a wall; then gesturing. “Dig here.”

Some shoveling and a few whisks of a broom disclosed a rune-carved door, set into the stone pavement. Tony pried it open. “Got a torch? Let’s go.”

Sir James had followed; but the other servants had not. “Get over here,” Tony said; and when they did not move, “What’s the problem?”

“The Royal Crypt was there, sir,” said one. “We dare not.”

“Yeah, well, I dare. Sit. Stay put. Rhodey, go get some Shieldsmen willing to hunt for treasure. We’ll wait.”

 

A Shieldsman named Gallagher was willing to watch the servants; Jasper and Clint ( _almost_ Sir Clint) were willing to share in the chance to improve their prospects. And Silver did not seem to fear the tombs. So the five went underground.

Unlike the shining throne room, the grave chamber was not decorated with gold. Instead, the dead were buried with practical things: horse bridles (and skulls), bronze bowls of decaying food, warm cloaks held together with bronze-and-glass pins. The last and most recent grave, that of (Silver said) King Bor, finally showed golden traces, in rings on his arms and fingers and ears, soon removed. Silver grabbed a grave offering, a wooden horse on wheels, and tucked it in his sleeve as they searched for treasures. The air growing stale, they returned to the surface.

“Well?” said Gallagher; his share would come from theirs.

“A laminated bow and some arrowheads,” said Clint; “The arrow shafts are rotten, though.”

“I got the jewelry,” said Jasper. “Take your pick.”

“Lemme see the rest of it.”

Sir James had grabbed some old short swords (possibly long knives) with intricately knotted designs on their handles. Tony, ever practicing his trade, had taken a bronze krater, red-lipped from its former contents of wine, and filled it with miscellaneous things: horse bits, fasteners, bronze pins. He’d hummed the whole time he was down there.

“How ‘bout the boy?” asked Gallagher.

Silver had wrapped Bor’s discarded dull green cloak around himself, and had his toy horse.

“Well, he’s not afraid of ghosts, but he doesn’t have much sense of worth,” said Gallagher. “He’s yours all right, Tony.”

In the end, Gallagher took a sword from Sir James and a few of Jasper’s rings for wooing barmaids. The Shieldsmen headed back to their fire, and Sir James roused the servants to go.

“Desecrator! Mind yourself!” the oldest servant said, and grabbed at Silver’s overlong cloak; he _hissed_ in reply. Tony tugged at the leash, pulling him away from the group.

 

“Let’s get you some pants,” Tony said; then more quietly once they were far enough away: “No gold?”

“King Odin brought the gold,” said Silver. “There was none before. Or so I heard.”

Tony chuckled. “Maybe a dragon got it all.”

“You’ve _seen_ a dragon?” The boy’s eyes were wide. Tony just laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Gallagher of the Shieldsmen is the fellow playing _Galaga_ in the _Avengers_ movie.


	2. Horses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More goings-on around ruined Asgard. (AU about 1000 A.D.)

“I think you know more than you’ve let on,” Tony said to his captive that night. “Robbing royal graves…that’s a bit much _lese-majesty_ , wouldn’t you say?”

The boy looked up from his stew and said nothing. He was wrapped in the dull green cloak, and sitting on its hem.

“You know, I’ve seen a lot of the world,” Tony continued as he came closer, then fingered the collar of the boy’s cloak. “This wool, for instance: It only comes from goats in the mountains of High Persia. How would it get here, and how would a brat like you recognize it?”

“It’s soft,” the boy explained.

“And smells of the grave. But that doesn’t bother you.”

“No. It smells like…” then silence.

“Okay, let’s talk about the Royal family. You robbed King Bor’s grave. Did you know King Bor?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“He was Queen Frigga’s father. When he got old, he offered the kingdom to whoever Frigga chose to wed. There were a lot of contestants, but Odin had the best luck, and she chose him. She said he was handsome, when he had both eyes. Then they had lots of children, and King Bor retired, and Odin became king. He’d go on expeditions all the time, back to his old country, and he brought back gold and the Einherjar. King Bor would sit by the fire and make toys and teach the children— _all of us_ , not just the princes. And he made toys.”

“Let me see that horse,” Tony said. It was crudely made, in wood with nailed-on wooden wheels; its much-rubbed body was painted grey with white spots and a red saddle. “So what’s the story with it?”

“King Bor made it for my oldest brother,” Silver said. “Then as he grew older, he gave it to my next brother, and so on, until the youngest brother older than me had the horse. When I was little, I wanted it _so much_ ; and I’d sneak in my brother’s room and play with it when I could. But then King Bor died, and my stupid brother decided the king needed a horse to go to Valhalla on; so he gave King Bor the horse and not me. I _wanted_ it; that’s all.”

“Still?”

“Yes!”

Silver was childishly petulant and possessive; and Tony, once a spoiled only child, could relate to that.

 

The next morning:

“I need you to sort my loot,” Tony said, as they walked to his storage house. “Make three piles. If you know what it is, and it works, put it in the first pile. If you know what it is, and it doesn’t work, put it in the second pile. If you don’t know what it is, put it in the third pile. Got it?”

There was a cheer in the distance.

Silver said, “Yes, I understand.” Tony tied him to a post just outside the storage room, with a long rope and another complicated knot; dropped food and a leather water pouch in the shade.

“Good. I’ll be back at the end of the day,” said Tony. “Lady Natasha and I are looking for horses.”

“I could…help?”

“No, we’ve got a guide. Just watch and sort my stuff, okay?” Clapping his servant on the shoulder, and walking away.

 

It takes a horse to find horses, Tony told himself. He’d borrowed the Captain’s copper charger, Falcon, who needed the exercise and was constantly distracted as they rode. Natasha was on her blood bay mare, with Thor riding before her in the saddle; Clint had come with them as well, on his calm leopard-spotted ambling horse, with plenty of rope for halters and leads. (Tony didn’t have a horse at the moment; his has been killed in the Asgard siege, as he used it to pull an improvised cannon into position. An optimist, he hoped to find a Bucephalus in the missing herd, some powerful beast with Oriental blood.)

Once Falcon had burned off his excess energy with several dashes away and back, Tony trotted the horse back to Nat and Clint, who were moving at an easy walk. “How far to where we’re going?” he asked Nat; the boy in front of her sat stiff-lipped, tear-tracks etched in the dirt of his face, sad posture reminding him of Silver pulled from Frigga’s arms.

Nat ruffled the boy’s hair. “My little King has had an unhappy morning,” she said. “He found no brother.”

Tony recalled no child-sized corpse amid the hundreds they’d burned, then buried. Still, enough walls had come down that there could have been a missing child—or even a dozen—amid the refuse throughout the former palace or along the siege-toppled walls. He met the eyes of the sad boy. “I am sorry for your loss, Prince. However: if we don’t find horses, your remaining subjects can’t come with us. They can starve to death, or we can kill them mercifully when we leave. Which would you prefer?”

The boy muttered something; Natasha nudged him. “We couldn’t hear,” she said.

“I said”—and his young voice broke—“the horses are in a valley, across the river and beyond that ridge.”

“Are they guarded?” Clint asked, coming up on Natasha’s other flank.

“There are a few herders. No Einherjar.” That strange word that Silver had used.

“He means no soldiers,” Nat explained, and kicked her mare into a faster pace. The two men followed.

 

Through the creek, the water at ankle-height; over the ridge, and Nat raised the boy to stand before her on the saddle. “Hey, Asgardians! I brought your prince!”

A large meadow opened up before them. The herders rose from their rest under a trio of oaks; waved at the riders to come closer. Thor gave a happy shout in return. Past the herders… there must have been two hundred horses, mares and foals, bays and chestnuts and pintos: two for every remaining Asgardian, if not more.

“Enough horses for you?” Clint asked Tony.

“Oh, yeah; not just transport but more loot! Damn, we’re getting rich on this trip after all.”

“Yeah, well…where are the boy horses? I just see mommas and babies.” Clint trotted to the herders, to whom Nat was explaining that Their Prince required the horses NOW. “Hey! Where’s the bachelor herd?”

One herder gestured to the right of the trees, so Clint and Tony rode that way. Another low ridge, and a smaller bowl-shaped valley with a few dozen geldings and two alert, suspicious golden stallions: warhorses. A relaxed dumpy grey horse, mane and tail thick with burrs, proved to be a third stallion. The golden twins took exception to Falcon, of course; and Falcon was quite willing to try his hooves against them, rider or not. Tony carefully backed the sorrel away from the two; then cantered back to the trees and Natasha.

“So, how do we bring in the girls and the boys?” Tony asked once Clint had joined them.

Clint looked at him like Tony couldn’t tell one end of a horse from another. “Mares will follow the lead mare; so will geldings. Nat can lead the Gold Dust twins. You and the herders can fan out behind us and watch for strays.”

“What about that old grey horse?”

“He didn’t seem to mind Falcon. Maybe you can lead that one in.”

 

Which ended the afternoon with Tony on high-headed Falcon at the dusty tail-end of a herd of horses, telling the slow disinterested grey, “Come on, Stewpot.”

 

Once he had returned, saddle-sore, and delivered Stewpot to the picket lines and Falcon to Captain Steve’s tent, Tony walked to his storehouse to see what Silver had accomplished.

Nothing, that was what. All the metal goods were in one pile.

“You wanna explain this?”

Silver shrugged. “All of these are usable as hammers.”

Tony pulled out an object at random. “Was this originally used as a hammer?”

Silver shrugged. “You didn’t specify the _original_ purpose.”

“You’ll try it again later, with me watching. Let’s go.”

 

Worse, Silver _clanked_ as he walked. Tony got him as far as the tent, then said, “I’m going to the bathhouse to bake this ache out. You’re coming with me, but first: _Strip_.”

“Why?”

“Say it’s a test. You belong to me, right? Strip.”

Silver did; at first as slow as a strip-tease, then faster and less coordinated as knives and pins escaped from his sleeves. The shirt off, he paused.

“Keep going.”

“Umm…” Tony saw the bulge as Silver tried to turn.

“Wait. Stop.”

Tony stood before the front of the boy, reached a careful hand into his pants. Pulled out a _very impressive_ knife. “I wouldn’t want you to cut yourself,” he smirked. Silver made a face at him, then shucked off the rest of his well-pinned clothes.

Tony decided not to check any orifices for missing weapons; it was better not to introduce the boy to such ideas if he didn’t already have them. “Here’s a robe,” he said, then stripped ouchily himself and put on his own robe. And took off Silver’s collar, freeing the boy. “Let’s go.” With a hand on Silver’s shoulder. “Don’t step in any shit.”

In the dusk, a careful boy in a hooded robe, in a tight shoulder-grip; eyes to the ground watching for nightsoil, walking with Tony for his first communal bath with his homeland’s invaders.

 

Back from his quiet and relaxing bath, with a servant who finally did not smell of sour sweat and vomit, dried blood and decomposition and nightmares… (but still a faint incense smell perfumed his cape/blanket), Tony took a deep breath and tied Silver to the tent’s central pole securely, then wrapped the rope several times around him, lashing him to the post. And fetched a wooden box and started picking up sharp objects.

Silver glared. Tony babbled at him. “I was wrong. You did do a useful sort. Pointy things versus … hammers. Lemme explain what I had in mind with the three piles. The working stuff: we can use it or sell it, as is. The broken stuff: those are my toys. I’ll fix ‘em then put them in the first pile. The unknown stuff: that’s _your_ pile, to learn metalworking with.”

The kid was listening; good. “You’ll be much more valuable with a trade than without.”

Silver’s jaw dropped. That look meant _Betrayed again_ to Tony’s eyes.

“You get that we’re mercenaries, right? We knock over piss-ant towns, we take the loot, we spend it; repeat the process. _You. Are. Loot_. I prefer to travel due East; out there the only use for a slave without a trade—well. Girls are worth more than older women; boys are worth more than girls; _pretty_ boys—and you cleaned up pretty—are worth the most. You know what’s cheapest? Male slaves with knocked-out teeth. All they’re good for is giving blowjobs. You behave, you learn a trade. You misbehave, I knock out your teeth. Capishe? Got it?”

“Got it,” Silver said, growling like a wolf cub.

“Good.” Tony unwrapped the loops of rope, but left the collar and leash intact. “Go to sleep. I’ve got to sort horses and wagons tomorrow.”

 

The next morning, Tony dropped Silver off at the storehouse, alone but tied and provisioned, and walked to the picket line. Natasha and Nick were arguing.

“My point is that the horses belong to the king of Asgard: Thor.”

“And mine is we troops _took_ this town, and we get to take anything in it, which the horses are now.”

“But they _weren’t_ here. And you would not have found then without Thor.”

“Yeah, point.” Sir Nicholas rubbed his newly re-shaven skull. Noticing Tony: “We’ve got bored, loot-hungry troops, we’ve got a useless pack of Asgardian slaves, and we’ve _got to get going_! Winter’s coming. Stark, you solve this.”

Tony crouched down to scratch ideas in the dirt. “Yeah, sure. Let’s figure out our needs first. How many Asgardians haven’t been claimed? How many useful horses do we have? How many foals? How many wagons? How many wagon-loads of loot do we need to haul? How many soldiers and Asgardians need places on the wagons? How much food can we carry?”

“Coulson!”

Coulson was further down the picket line, admiring a red mare; but came running at the sound of his name. With all the answers Tony needed. He could fall in love with the man’s efficiency. He could even reward it.

“Okay, we’ve got leftovers; good.”

“All the horses should be Thor’s,” Natasha repeated stubbornly.

“Yeah, Nat, but…consider this. Would he rather have horses or his people? ‘Cos otherwise we’ll have to distribute the Asgardians to the Shieldsmen. From what I’ve seen, Prince-or-King Thor won’t approve of losing his people. Trade?”

“Oh, you win. Thor will have his people. As king, he should not lose face over this, however.”

“He gets a warhorse. Your pick of the gold stallions.”

“What?” demanded the Fury.

“ _You_ get the other one. A leader needs a warhorse.”

“What about your Captain?”

“Falcon took exception to the twins, and Falcon is a hell of a warhorse. Let Steve have the choice of the geldings, he’ll be happy.” Tony stood up and dusted his knees.

“And the other Avengers?”

“Let’s take three horses each. Nick, you’re included. Nat, Thor’s horse counts as one of your three, if you don’t mind. We can sort out the picking order tonight. Draw straws or something.” But the last time, Tony had drawn the short straw, and so had no Royal hostage…

“And the Shieldsmen?”

Coulson spoke up. “Most of the foals are too young to be separated from their mothers. If we give each campfire of men some mares _and_ their foals, to the _group_ , the men will work together. Otherwise, half the horses would be gambled away by dawn; but no man would gamble away his buddy’s share of a horse.”

“Good thought,” Tony said. “Hey, commanders? Mind if I reward your aide?”

“Go ahead,” said the Fury.

“Do I get another horse?”

“Come _on_ , Nat!”

She raised her hands in teasing surrender, straight-faced. Nat appreciated Coulson, too; having risen from the ranks of the Shieldsmen.

“Phil. That red mare you were looking at? She’s yours. Pick a good name for her.”

 

Back to the storehouse where, wonder of wonders, the metalwork had been stacked in three neat piles. Tony inspected the first two curiously: there were things _he_ didn’t recognize, but Silver did?

“Hey, kid! What’s this?” It looked like a drinking horn, decorated with the head of a dragon-fish, but the mouth was far too wide.

“Downspout,” the boy said. “For a rain gutter.” And if Silver had known this one familiarly, patted its head whenever he left the castle, that was a private thing and not to be shared.

From the second pile: “And this?” A bronze box with a circular face, some odd pointers on it; Stark had seen clocks in the East, maybe this was one?

“For navigators,” Silver said. “It tells you where you are in the sea, but it’s broken.”

Maybe Tony could turn it into a clock. He went back to the first pile, picked up an iron object triumphantly. “And this?”

“A … hammer?” Tony smiled, then the boy smiled back.

“Just right. Good job! Now, we’ll have to pack up these so we can take them when we go. Can you get me three sturdy baskets from the market? One that can hold each pile? Remember, they’re heavy.”

“You mean me? Alone?”

“Yeah. I want to start in on these scrolls next. Oh, right. Come here.”

Tony untied the leash from the post and the boy’s collar, reached into his own purse and grabbed a few coins, and then… “One more thing,” as he used the rope to hobble him, tying careful knots at each of the boy’s ankles.

“There. Plenty of room to walk. I’m not worried about you running away, but we’ve got horses now. You won’t steal a horse if you can’t ride. Go get the baskets.”

The boy looked from his legs to the money in his hand to Tony’s face. “Yes, master.”

 

By the time Silver returned with the baskets, Tony had divided the paper piles into scrolls and fragments. Clearly the loose papyrus fragments were the most vulnerable; so after Silver had filled the baskets with metal parts, Tony untied his legs and used the rope to tie together a tall stack of loose pages.

“Hold out your arms,” Tony said, and piled the remaining loose papers in Silver’s arms. “You take those, I’ll take these”—hefting the strung pile—“back to the tent. Go.”

“I could run,” Silver warned, leash-less and legs free: yeah, he could.

“Don’t,” Tony said. “Okay?”

To his surprise, Silver agreed. “Okay.” And came with him freely.

…

Afternoon muster of all the Avengers: Nat minus Thor, Clint horse-wrangling, Captain Steve bruised and smiling, Bruce with reluctance, Tony with Silver (collared but not on a leash), plus Nicholas the Fury and Coulson as scribe. “We have extra horses,” Tony started, “so I figure we Avengers should get first pick. I’ve already given three away to some of us, with I hope your agreement, so how shall we proceed with the rest?”

“Which three were given away?” asked Bruce mildly.

“A warhorse to Nat, a warhorse to Nick, and I gave a little red mare to Coulson, since he took a liking to her. Bruce, did you want a warhorse?”

“No; I got the big prize last time. Tony, why don’t you pick first? Then Steve, then Clint, then me, then Nat and Nick since they have their first picks anyway. Is that okay?”

“Everyone all right with that?” Tony asked. “Coulson, you have your horse; you’re just here to record. Okay?”

Assents all around.

“Then let’s go. I pick, uh…” Silver was tugging at his sleeve. “ _What_?”

The boy said quietly, “Take the grey stud as your portion. You complain you received no Royal prisoner? Take that one.”

Tony replied quietly as well. “I wanted Bucephalus.”

“Who? Take Svadilfari.”

“Stewpot.”

“Svadi. I will groom him; then you will see what you have.”

Tony turned to the rest. “My servant informs me that I will be taking Stewpot. You see the wisdom of not bringing your hostages to this meeting.”

“Well?” asked Coulson.

Tony didn’t _need_ a warhorse; the last one’s excitability while pulling the makeshift cannon had probably led to its demise. At least the big horse in the picket line could be eaten. He could also probably pull a cart full of metal with no trouble if he put his mind to it. Silver grabbed a stalk of blooming wheat and tickled the horse’s nose with it. A sudden snort and stamp; the horse pulled back, taking half the picket line with it. Power. Yeah.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “I’m guessing he can pull. I’ll take Stewpot.”

 

Steve had a good eye for horses in general, choosing two geldings and a dark mare in his turns; Clint favored the loud pintos; Bruce’s first choice was a smooth-footed mare for Frigga, and then a bay roan gelding for himself and a solid carthorse; Nat took two mares, red sorrel and mahogany bay; Nick grabbed a black gelding and a dark bay nondescript hunterish mare. And Tony? He figured another cart horse wouldn’t hurt, taking a solid, straight-shouldered bay gelding, and as his final pick a high-footed light bay filly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed Lola in the horse herd; Coulson has her now.
> 
> Tony's clock-or-something is the Antikythera Mechanism (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism).


	3. Preparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our first introduction to dragon powder.

Tony and Nat are in her tent, smoking hashish (I told you he likes everything Oriental) and talking. (Young Thor is outside, to “toughen him up” for the journey to Nat’s homeland.)

“Such a strange kingdom,” Nat muses. “All blondes, so far south…”

Tony neglects to mention Silver.

“Why do you call your boy Little King? Aren’t you afraid he’ll get ideas? Act on them?”

“Well, he is the king, isn’t he? I imagine his people will follow him into exile in Rus.”

“So he’s the only claimant? Because I heard…” Tony says lazily.

“What?” Nat’s eyes are sharper than the drug should allow.

“Well, Bruce has Frigga, right? I heard that whoever Frigga chooses is the king.”

“You heard that _where_?”

Tony shrugged. “Servants.”

“Did you tell Bruce? _Don’t_.”

“I wasn’t planning to. He gets moody enough about her as it is.”

 

Another shared pipe bowl, and Natasha says, “I guess that explains…”

“Wha?” Tony, roused from near sleep.

“At first, whenever I called him Little King, my Thor would answer by asking for his brother. Maybe the brother had a better claim. But if he’s dead…” she loosely waved a hand. “Poof. Not a problem.”

 

After a short nap, Tony staggered back to his tent. He’d left Silver untied, figuring _what the hell_ , when he went to see Natasha; came back to stumble through piles of paper and crash again on his bed until the evening, when Silver lit the lamps and then brought back a wineskin and two bowls of the ubiquitous stew.

“I guess you’re useful after all,” Tony said as he ate. The silent boy gave him a vaguely disapproving look. Afterwards, Tony picked up a lamp, investigating the piles of papyrus fragments, each held down with a smooth rock. Looked at the boy. “Pointy things and hammers?”

_This_ pile was lettered in Attic Greek, _this_ one in hieroglyphs, _this_ one with runes, annotated; that tall one in Latin, a pile in Phoenician, and another pile in Greek, which turned out to be the Egyptian Demotic version. “Why two piles in the same language?” Tony pointed to the two stacks of Greek papers.

“Because they are not the same language,” said the boy.

“You can _read_?”

“A little.”

“Bor?”

“Bor taught me, yes. Or tried to, before he died.”

“Then I guess I don’t have to knock out your teeth after all.”

Tony lay back in his bed after checking that there was space on the crowded floor for the boy to sleep.

“We’ll work on this skill, too,” he said, closing his eyes.

 

Tony had another surprise the next day. While he’d been chatting with Natasha, Silver had taken Stewpot to the river, washing the horse in the (slightly urine tainted) water and working out the knots in its mane and tail. Dull grey had become dapples; the off-white flowing mane and tail glowed. “Okay, he’s prettier,” Tony allowed; then found the boy some shears. “Get rid of the mane, and most of the tail; we won’t have time for hairdressers. And clean up my other horses.”

Off to finishing wagon building and allocation. When he came back, all the horses were neatly groomed, the horsehair in tidy piles, and Silver had cut his own hair as short as Tony’s, if not as professionally barbered. (In fact it was a rather poor job of cutting, but allowances should be made for the use of shears and the lack of a mirror. So, good enough.) Tony gave the boy some cording to tie up the horsehair, so it could later be braided into rope.

 

Very early the next day Tony and Silver took their horses to the leatherworkers’ yard, rousing the workers to find harness pieces that would fit: bridles and martingales and cruppers, and anything else needed for hauling wagons. Tony insisted on a variety of harness, so that one horse or two in a line could be used for pulling. The filly needed only a halter and enough rope to lead her, either from the wagon or from another horse.

Then came a test fitting of the horses to Tony’s wagon, the gelding in front of Stewpot as they responded to Tony’s reins and shouts, Silver’s whistled commands, around the dead city and in through the gates to finally come to Tony’s store house. “We’re taking all of it,” Tony said to Silver, and picked up the heaviest basket of metal. “Go get some more baskets for the scrolls, and get some matting. Run!”

Once the boy had gone, he put some _special things_ in hidden places in the cart; then went for another basket.

By noon the storage room was empty. “Back to my tent,” Tony ordered. “You drive, I’ll check the load balance.”

 

“Eat.” Bread this time, not stew; with some aging fruit as a following course. Tony looked around the tent. “Think we can load all this up this afternoon?”

“In the same load?”

“Yep. We’re going to that ridge, first thing in the morning.”

 

“What’s this?” Silver was tugging at something incredibly heavy, from under Tony’s bed.

“Anvil. I’ll get it.”

“And these?” Two small barrels, also from under the bed: Tony’s “oriental dragon powder.”

“Don’t open those! Your eyes will itch like mad. And keep them away from any fire!” Tony practically ran to take each barrel out to the cart.

“But what are they?” Silver, with his inquiring mind; Silver, who could read, dammit.

“I’ll show you in a few days. Don’t touch ‘til then, okay?”

 

Everything outside, and the tent collapsed; Tony cut long withies from the nearby willow trees, tied them into arches and set them into special holes in the wagon’s side; then he and Silver flung the tent silk over them. Silver loaded and Tony arranged everything in the wagon, leaving out only their dining utensils, a lamp, his bedding (now a bedroll) and Silver’s cloak. They’d staked the horses in the nearby grass; Tony made a last fire in his campsite’s fire ring; Silver went for food. By then it was fully dark.


	4. Ka-boom!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So an archer, an engineer, and an unacknowledged prince walk up to a dam....

His aches woke Tony before the eastern sky turned pale; a kick to wake up Silver, and they went to the baths in the dark. “ _Always_ camp by a hot spring, if you can find one,” Tony advised. Dressed again, they packed their last things, and Tony kicked dead the fire while Silver led the horses into place and hitched them up. Stewpot might be as sore as Tony from the preceding day’s unaccustomed exercise; so Tony started the horses into a gentle walk while Silver made encouraging cooing noises at the filly.

 

As the day warmed up, the horses were allowed to trot, and then back to a walk as their flat path started to rise. Tony was talking; he _liked_ to talk, and the kid had been curious, so...

“Far to the East there are many small and a few large kingdoms and then water as far as the eye can see. It’s called Oceanus: the World Ocean; I’ve seen it in the West, too. Oceanus is made of salty water. There are little tasty fish that are also salty, and big delicious fish that are not. There are dolphins that carry sailors to safety. There are even whales, giant fish as big as the hill we’re climbing, that blow water into the air.

“The Chin people live next to Oceanus. They grew jealous of the whale’s ability to blow water into the air, so their magicians developed a special powder that would cause the Earth to sneeze up its water, too. But the powder is very strong, and causes the Earth to sneeze up other things as well. So the dragons of Chin commanded that only with their help—with fire—would the magicians’ powder work.

“So in short: Oriental dragon powder plus fire equals _ka-boom_. You’ll see.”

“Now?”

“Gimme a few days.”

 

The top of the ridge had a small flat meadow, perfect for camping and feeding the horses, amid surrounding oaks and pines. The next morning revealed a view back to Asgard, and another, closer view down to the waterfall that fed its river. Tony pulled from the cart a small instrument—a pair of glass lenses in a tube—through which he looked down to the camp. _Spyglass_ , he called it in reply to Silver’s question.

“What now?” asked Silver, his morning tasks done.

“Now? We wait for the Avengers and Shield to decamp. Then I’ll show you the dragon’s trick.”

“You said… you said you would burn all Asgard, sow the land with salt, and turn the river and fields into marshland?”

“You have a good memory,” said Tony. “I personally won’t be doing _all_ that, but we’ll getter done.” And stepped back from the viewpoint. “But not today. Let’s see how well you read.”

 

Tony reclining under an oak tree, Silver sitting beside him, reading scattered words from a papyrus scrap written in Greek in the leaf-spotted sunlight.

“Accounting,” Tony said. “It’s missing a plot. Try another page.”

And so on.

 

In the afternoon, Tony had Silver gather the loose long dried grass from the meadow’s edge, then tied it with silk cords into the shape of a sleeping man. “Suppose it’s night and you are a bandit. How would you kill this man, who has foolishly fallen asleep when he should have been guarding my camp? Here.” He gave the boy one of the bronze grave knives.

Silver crept up to the body, oh so carefully, lifted the head with his right arm and chopped at its throat with his knife in his left hand. “Like that. But…”

“But what?”

“Why am I killing him?”

“Why? You’re a bandit!”

“Yes, but… it’s night. If he is alone, I can simply hamstring him and take the horses.”

“He’ll cry out. He’ll see you.”

“He may moan, but there is no one to hear him. And he _will not_ see me.”

“It’s my camp. _I’ll_ hear him.”

“Perhaps.” Silver pouted.

“Look, not the point. Where else would you attack him?”

“Anywhere. I could cut his hands off, so people will think _he_ is the thief; I can stab for his heart, or his liver, or take his masculinity; or I can slit off his clothes and leave him bare and whole.”

“All that, huh?”

“Yes!”

“Then why haven’t you killed _me_?” Tony was yelling now.

“ _How_ is that to my advantage?” The boy shouted back.

Tony sat down suddenly. “Huh. That bad, eh?”

“What!”

“I meant your life, before.”

“Oh.” Silver sat down as well, scratched a runemark in the dirt with the point of his knife. “Yes. It was.”

“Except for your mistress?”

“When I was allowed to see her, yes.”

More mysteries. Tony shook his head. “Anyway. The point. Now suppose _he_ is the bandit”—pointing at the straw man—“and _you_ are the overworked, haven’t-slept-for-days, cold, hungry, _tired_ sentry. How do you make yourself safe, even if you are asleep?”

“I put dry sticks all around me, so he cannot approach silently.”

“Good. Anything else?”

The boy pouted again, thinking this time.

“I make a straw man that he will think is the guard, and I am somewhere else—in rocks, up a tree—not down here.”

Tony hadn’t thought of that one.

“Well, for more _conventional_ bandits, who just want to slit your throat, why don’t you protect it? Wear the collar at night, okay?”

“I am your slave, yes?”

“Damn straight.”

 

The next day:

“What are we doing today?” Silver, his newly shorn hair sticking up in all directions.

Tony, carefully not laughing. “I’m going reconnoitering. You’re braiding yesterday’s straw into rope.”

“How much?”

“All of it. In fact, when you run out, cut more grass and keep braiding. We’ll need as much as you can make.”

 

To turn a marsh into a river (and fertile farmland), you channel the river; to turn a river into a marsh you destroy the channel. Break the dam at the waterfall, and the pent-up water behind it should gouge out the stream bed and flood the fields. In theory.

In practice, the destructive power would be considerably improved by loading the lake behind the waterfall with felled trees. Not to mention that a strategic fallen tree would make it easier to blow up the falls from the far side…maybe the blast would take two days to prepare, not one. Tony started planning which trees he needed to fell, then spent the rest of the day chopping.

 

Late afternoon, and his assistant Silver has braided a whole _shit-ton_ of rope, plenty for their purposes. Tony, always fond of his own cleverness, waits until dinner to explain what it’s for. Watches Silver use flint and pyrite to spark a fire in duff and kindling in the hearth ring, then blow gently to bring it to life.

“You’re pretty good at that. I guess you should be, being Hearthfire and all.”

Silver raises an eyebrow in response.

“But I’m wondering. What if you didn’t want a fire here? What if you wanted it over there?” with a gesture.

“I’d walk over there,” Silver said, implying pretty well that Tony was a fool.

“Nuh-uh. You can’t get there. Too difficult, too dangerous, enemies there…Now what?”

Silver places a chosen stick in the growing fire, waits until one end ignites. “I’d throw this.”

“Not too accurate. But suppose you’d been able to get over there before it got too dangerous, before the enemy came? Then you could just do this.”

Tony took the stick from Silver, held the burning end to a barely-visible tuft of straw rope. Fire wicked along the braid until it reached Tony’s indicated spot in the dirt. “See?”

 

The fire crackled; two spitted rabbits cooked. There was the sound of a snapping twig from beyond the campfire’s light, and both Tony and Silver noticed it. Silver rose from an easy crouch, grabbed his bronze grave knife left-handed; Tony gave a sideways half nod. _Go find out_.

Silence; then: “Hey…HEY! Stop that!” and sounds of a scuffle. Clint emerged into the light with his bow and quiver across his back, one hand hauling the boy by a fore-arm, the other holding Silver’s knife.

“Some welcome I get!”

“You didn’t announce yourself,” Tony said.

“I wasn’t here yet,” Clint protested. “You’re arming the kid now?” Letting him go.

“There’s only two of us here, so … yeah. But what brings you here, Clint?”

The archer rubbed his hand through his hair. “Uh, it’s _Sir Clint_ now. The Fury knighted me yesterday; you missed the party. We’re ready to roll out down there, so it’s almost time to flood the place.”

“Everybody has their spot in line? Got all the loot packed and prisoners ready to go?”

“Just about.”

“The fields all salted?”

“Yesterday.”

Why was Silver glaring now, when he’d shrugged off being captured?

Tony elbowed the boy: _Pay attention to me, dammit_. “Then tomorrow afternoon will be Dragon Time. Have some rabbit.”

 

As they ate, Tony rubbed his greasy fingers on the straw braid Silver had made. “Waterproofing,” he told the other two; they all three rubbed rabbit fat into the rope (there was far more rope than fat) until their hands were clean again. While Clint and Silver sat on the far side of a large rock, Tony went to the wagon, lit by a lamp set outside past the rucked-up tent wall, and set up a table and a dozen squares of worn linen cloth. He pulled out one of his oriental powder kegs, pried the lid off with a stout stick, and carefully, with a special wooden spoon, put a small pile of black powder in the middle of each cloth square. He closed the keg and then tied up each bag with its own bit of twine. That done, he put the keg back in its secure hiding place, lowered the tent wall, and went upstream to wash his face. He came back with the lantern.

“All clear! Stay away from the wagon and go to bed.”

 

The next morning, after Tony and Clint had looked over the Shield camp—they had lined up their carts and were leaving as Tony watched—the three of them went to the waterfall site. Both Silver and Clint were spryer than Tony, so they walked along Tony’s log bridge to the far side of the water fall, carrying half the rope between them and leaving a fat-soaked line to the rest of it, by Tony. Then came the delicate work of cramming rope into the face of the rocks.

Silver was not permitted to help with the next part. Tony and Clint took six little bags each, and shoved them in various crannies in the rock pile, where the rope had been promisingly placed.

A pause for lunch and a spyglass view of the now empty campsite, the abandoned town. Tony handed the spyglass to Clint, saying “Your eyes are better than mine.”

“All clear,” Clint reported.

“Are the horses tied tight?” he next asked Silver.

“They are roped securely to the trees,” said Silver, proud to be helping in the dragon-work.

“They better be,” said Tony. “Clint, grab your weapons. Silver, take the lamp. Let’s do it.”

 

“You wanna do the honors?” Tony asked Silver at the dam. Silver just stood there, his lower lip quivering.

“Right, blow up your own town, probably not,” muttered Tony: then, louder: “Give me that piece of rope. And watch!”

He bent down with the lamp, started the fuse burning. “Keep watching…” as pale fire was nearly invisible in the bright sunlight… “watch…” as it moved to the center of the dam, started to split into two paths… “crap!” The fuse for the far end of the dam had burned out before the fire reached their net of rocks. “Crap!”

“Clint, gimme a fire arrow!” Clint did, and Tony hurriedly lit it. Clint raised the bow, pulled back the arrow, and let it fly.

“Hadn’t we better duck?” Clint asked.

“Yes, DUCK!”

Clint pulled down Silver, flat against the ground.

“Looks like you got it,” Tony reported, still standing; then came a series of VERY loud bangs, with rocks flying through the air, then a long, still louder low rumble, and the water tumbled much faster out of the widened gap.

“It’s working!” Clint shouted, as the fallen trees behind the dam moved too, pulling at the shoreline and carrying the flood down. “We’re not safe here! Let’s go!”

 _Now_ Tony was on the ground, cursing softly with a bloody gash on his forehead. _Damned flying rocks_. Clint hauled him back, Silver propping Tony up a bit on the other side as he carried the lamp as well. Clint dumped Tony into the wagon, then went to help Silver harness the oddly calm horses. They left, precipitously; Tony dizzied by the swaying of the wagon as he lay there.


	5. Hunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony has a headache; Clint and Silver go hunting.

When they reached Clint’s wagon, Eir took one look at Tony, then ordered Clint’s camp-mates to set up a tent and put Tony inside. (Gallagher, had he known it, was halfway to being a hospital orderly; and would be a useful nurse once Eir was done with him.) “He goes in,” she ordered Clint. “You two, out!”

“Out where?” Clint was pouting; the boy quivering with uncertainty.

“The army always needs meat, yes? Go hunting.”

“Right.” Clint ducked inside the cart, apologetically, and exited with two bows and quivers of arrows. Then he mounted his spotted horse, pulled a pinto from his line.

“You can ride?”

“Yes!”

“Need a saddle?”

“No!”

Clint whistled, and one of the passing men tossed him a saddlebag of food and a spare bedroll. He leaned from the saddle and hoisted the kid onto the back of the pinto he’d chosen. Another Shieldsman bridled the horse and handed the boy its reins.

“Now,” said Clint, “Where’s the best hunting?”

“That way,” Silver pointed. “But it’s a day’s walk or more.”

“Kid, I don’t know if you noticed, but we ain’t walking. It sounds perfect. Lead on.”

 

 

Clint’s horses all had a smooth amble instead of the usual bouncy trot. That meant he could talk to the kid as they crossed the broad prairie, aiming toward the woods beyond.

“Used a bow before?”

“No,” said Silver.

“I’ll show you in the morning, then. I don’t expect we’ll reach your forest by nightfall.”

 

Silver Hearthfire hadn’t thought the dark magician _could_ be harmed, after he’d confronted the monster keeping Frigga. Now, escape was possible: but to where? to whom? The contract writer who’d called him “little inkblot on white parchment” was dead, from the siege, starvation and disease. Even the merchants who’d protested to the guards— _The princes are in the castle, this is only a worthless market boy_ —he had no coins now, and no disguise to hide himself in their midst, were he to ride ahead and catch up with them. And there were still _Einherjar_ in the Asgardian population.

 

That night Clint staked out the horses and laid out the bedrolls while Silver made his usual efficient fire. The boy was still glum, Clint noticed: quiet and a bit shaken up, as if some expectation had been shattered. _Maybe he thinks I own him now_ ; _or he’s … worried? for Tony? Easy way to find out…_ Dinner was jerked meat and a hard roll each, and water from their canteens; there had better be a water source tomorrow.

“We’ll see your master once we get back,” Clint said. “No worries. Well, except the usual ones.”

“What usual ones?”

“Maybe you didn’t notice, kid, but your master is a bit accident prone. Before this, he blew up his horse when we attacked your town.”

“But he’s powerful. He has talked to dragons!”

“Yeah, but he takes unnecessary risks. He’s the only one who’s willing to carry dragon powder. And nobody else has given their slave a knife and asked him to defend the camp—didja notice? Tony _trusts_ the world to behave.”

Silver looked down. _Time for another poke_. “Does it?” Clint asked. “Does the world behave? In your experience, I mean. Would you have expected this? Us?”

“You Avengers,” Silver said. “No, I did not expect you.”

They bedded down under the bright stars that almost reached the horizon.

 

Clint pulls the fletching from a not-quite-straight arrow, ties it into a tuft and lashes it back to the shaft. Walks twenty steps and plunges the arrow head-first into the ground. “There’s your target. Can you shoot a grouse on its nest?”

Silver holds the lighter of the two bows clumsily, the arrow in his hand wavering away from the bow. Clint kneels beside him, shows him how to hold it and pull. Silver’s sense of direction is good, he sees; but the boy does not yet know how much force produces how much flight. The first attempt is woefully short; the second, long and wide with frustration; and the third is just right. “You’re a natural,” Clint tells him. “Now try it on horseback.”

 

As they ride from the camp, Silver asked, “Why do you call yourself Avengers? Who do you avenge?”

“Ourselves, mostly. We all came from situations where we were betrayed, and couldn’t do anything about it at the time. So we agreed to help each other. Then we noticed other people besides us needed avenging, and”—with a shrug—“here we are.”

“Who sought vengeance upon Asgard?”

“Oh. That. That was, um, a ‘target of opportunity.’ Someone told us about a golden city off the usual trade routes, so we decided to check it out. There was more gold in the story than in the town, though.”

“How did my master become an Avenger?”

“Not my story to tell,” said Clint. _Aand_ the kid was back in his funk. Clint volunteered, “I can tell you how  I became an Avenger, if it helps.”

“How?” Yes, the man in painted, fringed clothes, in a particolored tent, on a spotted horse: he seemed a jester, not a warrior. So a guess: “ _Were_ you a jester?”

“Close. I was a _jongleur_ , a juggler. My father was a fletcher and I hunted birds for him as a child, to get the feather for his finest arrows. He taught me to use the bow, and called me Hawk-Eye. But I discovered I could make money by tossing bright balls in the air, or market fruit or the like, and the girls liked me; so I wandered off and chose that life. And then a group of Norman mercenaries came to Amiens, and one of my balls went past the company flag. The captain took umbrage; I laughed. He and his troop threatened violence, so I challenged them to an archery match before the whole town. They had their well-used bows and straight arrows; I brought a crooked bow (painted to look worse) and some quite bedraggled arrows; the captain didn’t know these were part of my act and I knew their abilities _very_ well. Did you see that deer, up ahead? We’re getting close to the forest.”

“But what happened to you?”

“Yeah, well. I beat their best archer, of course, and then all the rest had to try, with the citizens laughing all the while. I bested them all.”

“What did the captain do?”

“Son of a bitch _drafted_ me into his army! I managed to desert a few months later, but then he put a price on my head, so… Safety in numbers.” He grinned, and watched the kid, finally, grin back.

 

The deer had disappeared into the woods. Past the first screen of trees was a pleasantly gurgling creek, where Clint filled their water bottles and Silver stared at neat-pointed deer tracks in the soft soil. “They’ll be resting now,” Clint said, relaxing. “This is a good time of year to hunt. The lions are farther south, the bears are sweet and fat, and the deer are hunting each other. Now when you see a deer, aim for the middle, just behind the shoulder blade. That way, you’ll get the heart.” Pointing at a footprint with a stick. “In a few hours, they’ll be up again. We’ll get one then.”

 

They emerged from the woods that night with two gutted deer strapped to the back of the pinto, and Silver riding pillion behind Clint. They tied their catch to a tall branch on one of the last of the trees before the prairie, and moved a little farther into the grasslands to camp. Silver made a small competent fire, then Clint roasted the hearts and livers of their kill.

“Here. You shot this one.” Silver gnawed at the doe’s half-cooked heart uncertainly. Clint said, “It will give you her virtues. I guess not courage, of course, but maybe her fleetness, her devotion to her family … no, wait, forget that last one. It’s meat, you earned it, you get it.”

 

Riding sleepily back to where the last remnants of the troop were camped, on the next day, Silver wondered whether he might someday be worthy to join the Avengers.

Clint laughed. ”I dunno. You got anything to avenge? Besides us, I mean.”

 

Tony’s horses grazed with Clint’s paint horses; Eir’s tent had been put away, leaving her a sleeping pallet on his wagon; and Tony was having a lovely time ordering Clint’s companion’s about. Gallagher pointed to the arriving horses.

“About time,” said Tony. “Shall we get this show on the road now?”

Clint parceled out the returns: two deer, ready for closer butchering, and one child servant, looking shyly relieved. “Keep the bow, kid,” he told Silver; and parceled out some arrows.

“He gets an upgrade? I thought you didn’t believe in arming hostages.”

Clint said very quietly, “I’m not sure you were the first one to hold him hostage.”

“Yeah. You picked up on that, too, huh?” And then louder, “Get the horses hooked up, kid. Stewpot and, uh, the other one.”

“Your horse still needs a name?”

Silver was hauling the bay gelding forward, pulling its head down to whisper in its ear. Made a noise like the dam blowing and the horse yanked up its head.

Tony walked over and said, “In honor of our exploits together, I dub thee Kaboom.”


	6. On the road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving out from Asgard.

The next morning (Clint and his team had gone ahead), with Stewpot and Kaboom pulling the cart over level ground, Tony, holding the reins as he sat blinking with headache under a turban-like bandage, told the boy: “You were supposed to be impressed with the effects of the dragon powder.”

Silver, holding the filly’s lead as he sat next to Tony, said “You had already used it against us.”

“Yeah,” said Tony with a tired sigh; still: “Nice lady, Eir. We got to talking.”

From the corner of his eye, Tony watched Silver freeze into stillness. He relented: “Did you know about willow bark? Magical stuff. I traded her some bronze for it.” And babbled on merrily on the properties of herbs as the boy slowly relaxed.

 

Sir James of Rhodes led the scouts; they had found another broad meadow, tenanted mainly by sheep; the whole outfit was encamped there two days later, when Tony’s cart finally caught up to them. The Shieldsmen looked rested; the Asgardians exhausted.

Tony was to dine with Rhodey, Sir Nicholas, Nat, Clint, and Coulson; the war-leaders Captain Steve and Bruce otherwise occupied.

“You’re slow, Man of Metal,” Sir Nicholas greeted him.

“Yeah, somebody else chose all the fast horses,” said Tony.

“And whose fault is that?” from Natasha.

 

“So,” said the Fury over the last remains of the broiled lamb, “we’re about to leave Asgardian territory. We’ll burn the meadow, but from here on out we need a line of march and a plan for any other unhappy neighbors. Any suggestions?”

“Rhodey scouts,” said Tony; “Clint and Jasper ride as messengers along the column.” That was the way they worked. “The main problem I see—besides me—is the Asgardian foot-soldiers. They’re sore off their feet and they aren’t soldiers.”

“You were supposed to fix that,” said the Fury.

“Yeah, now’s the time. Coulson, can we make enough shoes for all of ‘em?”

“No.”

“Why not?’

“Nor enough sole leather.”

“The ladies in the carts—do they need their boots?”

“Ladies have smaller feet,” Nat pointed out.

“Yeah, but if we take the high tops off their high-topped boots, does that give us enough leather?”

“Possibly.”

“Okay, put ‘em all to shoemaking tomorrow. The men, too; everybody. Next problem?”

“Soldiers,” Nick reminded him.

“Yeah. Have Steve and Bruce and you two”—pointing at Nick and Nat—“train the most promising ones. Take half the men; pick them out tomorrow, during shoemaking. Coulson and _Sir Clint_ and I will train the rest.”

“How?” said Clint.

“Drills; at least we can teach them to march. Then we’ve got heroes and would-be heroes in the front; the wagons and guards in the middle, and me and the ambush fodder in the rear of the column. Give us a couple more days to get everyone used to new shoes and marching, and we’re ready to go.”

“If I’m teaching, who’s carrying messages? Gallagher?”

“Sure,” said Nick. “That works.”

 

On the last morning in the meadow, Tony said to Silver, “One more thing to handle before we go. What’s so special about Stewpot?”

“I can show you, but…alone. Just you.”

“Where?”

“Past that ridge. Can you ride Kaboom?”

There was no saddle in camp that was wide enough, and it would kill his thighs, but Tony said, “Yeah, I can ride. Let’s go now.”

The horses in their draft bridles, already growing fit from their days of hauling. Silver on grey Stewpot, reins loose. Tony on Kaboom, walking along as if for company. Until they were screened from camp.

“What?”

“You need to be at this height, to see,” explained Silver. He tied the reins in a knot and dropped them; raised his hands in the air, made a _tch_ noise. The horse walked in slow circles, one left and one right; trotted the same; hand-galloped bigger circles; and stood before Tony. Lifted suddenly in a rear, and held it, then dropped his forelegs. Silver must have been clinging by his curled-in toes, since otherwise he wasn’t attached to the horse at all: free hands, no reins, no saddle. Then both of them, horse and boy, bowed.

“Yeah, so what? Maybe Clint needs a circus horse, I don’t.”

“Not a circus horse,” Silver explained. “A _war horse_.” A noise like _hrup_! And the horse was on four feet, backed away from Tony, and ran free in another broad circle. Silver rode as if carrying a lance, and called out, high-pitched, “Charge!”

_Fuck. He’s running away._

But they returned at an easy canter. And Tony was starting to see possibilities.

“You saw what Svadi can do?”

“Think so.” Tony changed the subject. “As long as we’re out here, let’s arm our army. Find me a bunch of straight sticks, as long as you can. We’ll bring our Asgard friends lances.”

 

The marching Asgardians at the fore-front get equipment and food nearly the same quality as what the Shieldsmen get; Clint and Coulson, mounted, the latter carefully keeping red Lola away from oh-so-aware Stewpot, get the rear-guard moving in columns by lining them up by height, short to tall, and letting them watch and learn from Tony. (Yeah, Tony’s shorter than any adult male Asgardian: so what?) Tony has given them straight branches, and helped the men fire-harden the tips into crude spear points; he wears shoes like theirs, and sometimes stops their march to drill them in “shoulder arms,” and “run into the bushes and hide,” and even “charge.” Some of the rear-guard are rotated into hunting duty with Clint, and they all share their gruel, made in big pots and flavored with Eir’s herbs and the day’s kills. Some days they eat better than the lead troops.

After each night’s encampment, Silver rides the grey horse. Pulling gives it muscles in front; but Silver tickles its wide belly and rides with his weight on its haunches, and Stewpot shows muscle in the flanks and rear as well. On a rare rest day, Silver kidnaps a lamb from the cooks and then chases it bound for bound and pivot for pivot. Tony recalls a North Persian game, _buzkashi_ , in which teams of rides contend for the possession of a goat’s headless corpse. Old Stewpot might make a good gaming horse, despite his clumsy size.

 

Later, on the road, Tony leaves Silver with their cart and Kaboom, and rides Stewpot—it’s _his_ horse dammit, he gets to ride it—up to Nat and her cart, in the middle of the migration. Maybe Nat’s been avoiding him; or maybe she’s been keeping Thor away from Silver. But the crossroads are getting close; it’s time to find out.

“I talked to Clint’s woman—Eir. She said it was a great scandal when it happened.”

“What was?” Nat said. Tony motioned, and she looked into the tented wagon. Thor was still asleep.

“Well, there had been a contest for Frigga’s hand. Odin won, but the offer still circulated. One day when Odin and his men were on an expedition, six riders showed up from far to the East. Their leader had some name like Lightning-in-the-Forest, and he thought the contest was still on. Frigga fell in love with him.”

“Not very loyal.”

“Well, Odin had a wandering eye as well, and was looking to replace her with a younger model when he came back. Instead, he heard about the lover. Odin and his, uh, “enherriars” wiped out the strangers from ambush, and brought Frigga her lover’s corpse.”

“Nor very nice.”

“Yeah, kind of ‘Bitch, I’m back!’ But the Asgardian people were loyal to Frigga, not Odin, so he had to take her back. And he had the troops, so _she_ had to take him back.”

“Is there a reason you are telling me this ancient history?”

“Not so ancient. Thor was a baby then. And Frigga had another son, soon after, who looked like his dad. His _real_ dad.”

“Oh.”

“Odin adopted him, of course. Still, there were some Asgardians who argued that this Loki should be the crown prince, since his father had been chosen most recently by Frigga.”

“But he’s dead. My Little King could not find him.” She paused. “But then he didn’t see Silver.”

Tony scoffed. “Silver looks nothing like him. Besides, I don’t want to lose my servant, even if he was the Lost Prince of Asgard. Which he isn’t. So you should be in the clear, as long as Frigga does not proclaim undying love for Bruce.”

“She has said nothing! He keeps her utterly secluded!”

“To your advantage, Lady Nat.” Tony saluted her, two fingers to his hat, and rode back to his own slow cart.


	7. Crossroads.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers disband, for now.

The following days were uneventful. The troops marched south, with Tony occasionally chanting “up…hup…hup” to keep the Asgardian rear guard in cadence; Clint sometimes borrowed Silver to help with the hunting; it rained one night, resolving into dew by the morning; and rained another, colder day as they marched. The trail they were making from Asgard (the way there would no longer be secret; but then, the destination was gone, now) finally reached a major, Roman, road; and not much further along another intersected it, at a plain with pleasant trees, and a gurgling brook that arose from a well. The crossroads.

So they hunkered down, and unpacked; selected goods and equipment that would be useful in their future roles, or in establishing status before strangers; traded items among themselves, repacked, and said their good-byes. Nat would inherit the bulk of the infantry, with Sir Clint to general them; but the Asgardian women were losing half their carts to the Fury, so must consolidate their meager possessions and decide who should walk. (The restive children were delighted, for now.)

Tony could have skipped out early, all packed as he already was; but it was a last chance to see _these_ friends in God-knows-how-long. So he kept a fire going, pulled out some good wine, read papyri and waited, relying on Silver to see to their immediate needs, and sometimes volunteering the boy to help with any work that did not involve Asgardians.

Such as seeing to the horses: grazing them downstream, and watching for late predators. The bears were asleep; from beneath a convenient tree, Silver howled at imaginary wolves: _this_ _territory is taken_. A second voice joined his, off-harmony, and Silver rose to see who it was: Tony, finally away from camp? A snort from nearby Svadi, who had his ears pricked forward, unaggressive: the newcomers were Falcon, the bright copper stallion Tony had borrowed once, and its rider, Captain Steve.

“Are we needed?” Silver hailed him.

“Not today, son,” Steve reassured him. (Or was “son” meant to reassure?) “But I had a day free and I’ve watched you ride. I was hoping you could show me some of the things you do?”

The boy shrugged, and leapt upon his horse; walked him up to Falcon, then away in a sweeping walk, a cow-horse turn then back in a canter. Steve tried to watch as he rode, with no success: Silver rode like a Scythian, like a part of his horse, and could not describe in words how he communicated with Svadi. “That’s just … that’s just frustrating,” Steve admitted.

“I can do it again?”

“No, don’t bother. Can you tell me at least why I _can’t_ ride like you do?”

“Show me,” said Silver, and Steve tried to run Falcon in the same pattern: a sweeping walk (more balky than swinging, as Falcon would rather trot), a wide turn, and a clumsy charge back; not at all the responsive cavalry horse Falcon should be.

Steve trotted back to the dismounted boy. “What am I doing wrong?”

“He can’t do what you want,” Silver said. “He needs more muscle.”

“He has muscle,” Steve protested.

“In the front! He needs it _there_ (pointing to the belly), _there_ (flanks), and _there_ (haunches)!”

Steve dismounted, and crouched at boy height. “We’ve all been on the same march. Why is your horse’s condition different?”

“I ran him up the hills! I chased rabbits. He pulled a cart. Your horse walked along the flat trails only.”

“I’d like my spirited charger again. We can’t spare grain, or I’d feed him that. What do you suggest?”

“Ah. A few things.” He walked up to Svadi, tickled the horse’s broad belly. Svadi lifted it with a happy sigh. “Do that.”

“Tickle his tummy?”

“Yes. Try it.” It was an unaccustomed maneuver, and Steve felt as strange as the look Falcon was giving him; but the horse finally sighed. “Do that,” Silver repeated.

“What else?”

“Make him go backwards,” Silver said; put his hand on Svadi’s broad chest and pushed slightly. The horse obediently took a step back. “Lots of steps. Both sides should step back, not just one.”

“I’ll have to work on that one,” Steve said. “What else?”

“This one’s easy,” Silver said. “Let him smell some mares. Come on.”

Back on the horses, walking over to the mare band when Silver pulled up short. “Just past this ridge; a whiff, nothing more, and bring him back.”

Steve walked Falcon forward carefully. The stallion’s nostrils widened; he shook his head, arched his neck, and began to prance in place. Steve brought him back, still dancing. “He needs someone to show off for,” Silver explained.

“Favor for favor,” Steve said. “Come with me back to the camp.”

“But the horses?”

“Will be all right for a while. Come on!” At least Falcon could out-run heavy Stewpot. They did not stop at Steve’s tent, as Silver expected, but went on to the double-wide green tent _where Frigga was kept_.

“Bruce! Sir Bruce! Out with you!” Steve called. Would they fight?

“What is it?” Sir Bruce did not look angry, just rumpled and bed-headed and blinking. “You challenging me?”

“Nope.” Steve alit from the horse. “You owe me a favor, and I owe Silver a favor, so you’re going to pay off to him.”

“But,” started Silver.

“Hush,” said Steve. “My favor, not yours.” Turned to Bruce. “When we go our own ways, it’s just going to be the kid here with Sir Tony. You’ve been in that position. How do you keep Tony from doing something foolhardy and suicidal?”

“Ah. Don’t let him think too much,” Bruce said. “When he gets broody, interrupt him with anything you can think of. And keep fire away from his dragon powder.”

“Did he ever kill…any of you?”

“Just me, one time. Almost.” Bruce laughed. “Good luck to you!”

…

Silver detoured to Tony’s camp fire on the way back to the horses. Tony was sitting by the fire, reading something in Arabic.

The boy dismounted and sat by Tony, by the fire. “May I ask something?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you thinking too much?”

Tony waved at his pile of empty wine bottles and laughed. “Kid, I’m not thinking _at all_. Are you going back to the horses?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Get going.”

…

Decision time (although the decisions had been already made; now they would be implemented).

Tasha and her Thor, and her nearly-full complement of Asgardians, would be turning east and then north for Kievan Rus. Barton and his coterie would go with them; Shield did not mind extensive absences.

Bruce and Captain Steve, with several palfreys and a string of baggage horses each, would travel west at a rapid pace—both Sif and Frigga could ride—to England and Ireland respectively before the winter storms cut off sea travel.

Fury and his Shieldmen—augmented by several enthusiastic Asgardian youths, Shieldmen in training—were turning south, in the hopes of finding guard duty with some caravan or party of pilgrims.

Which left Tony.

He and Silver would be following, more or less, in the trail of Bruce and Steve, but at a much slower pace. Tony planned to find the first village or town in need of a blacksmith, and to hole up there all winter while teaching Silver the arts of his trade. They moved in the wake of the army.


	8. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You guys reason more quickly than Tony did, right? He finally figures something out...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I reworked this chapter since it seems it confused too many of my helpful fans.**

They were in the plains now: tawny grass knee-high on their horses, and long views of distant mountains, hints of closer trees. There was a haze in the mornings, untainted with smoke; and the clear days showed no signs of nomads or their herds. (Probably there were more fertile meadows elsewhere.)

A few mornings after the separation of forces, while packing up to move for the day, Silver casually mentions that Svadilfari had come to Asgard with a group of Ferghanis led by someone named Lighting. Tony looks at the horse—clearly Persian—and the dark-haired boy _who can read and knows a lot about the court and Bor and Frigga_ —and two and two finally crystallize into four. Silver. Loki.

Son of a bitch.

“Watch the camp!”

“What?” Silver, confused, as Tony leaps back into Svadi’s saddle.

“Stay here and watch the camp! I may be gone a week or so!”

 

He cut across country, ignoring the road, calculating in his head how far a whole city of Asgardians should be from the crossroads by this point.

 

Brought Nat on her bay mare when he returned, _considerably_ less than a week later, both horses a-lather.

“Now talk,” Tony commanded. “What’s your name, really?”

“Loki,” Silver said. “It means hearth fire, or home fire. I didn’t lie to you.”

“Yeah, you were just creative with the truth. Is Thor your brother?”

“Yes.”

“Older or younger?” asked Nat.

“Older,” Silver replied.

“He doesn’t act it,” she said.

“Well, when one has been _coddled_ , one grows more slowly. And he’s not _that_ much older.”

“How much older, Silver?” Tony asked.

“Almost six months.”

The two Avengers looked _very_ puzzled.

“Well, that’s what we were always told. Thor took longer in the womb because he was created to be great, and I took less time. I was an afterthought.”

“Doesn’t work that way, kid,” Tony told him gently. “Are you sure Frigga was your mother?”

“Yes! I was there at the time!” That catlike little brain kicked in. “Although I was not aware then, or soon after. Eir would know.”

“Nat?”

“Clint is with me. I think we can ask Eir without disturbing anyone else. I need to talk to the boy, then you and I should talk. Privately.”

Tony waved to the far side of the wagon. “Talk over there; I won’t listen. But don’t hurt my servant.”

“Acceptable,” she said, and rose to pull Silver ( _Loki_?) away.

…

Nat pulled Silver down as she sat in the tall grass; seating him close to her that their words would not carry. “ _Now_ tell me the truth,” Natasha said. “All of it.”

“I did tell the truth!”

“Whose child are you?”

“Odin’s and Frigga’s.”

“Whose is Thor?”

“Odin’s and Frigga’s. I am younger, that’s all.”

“Where did the grey horse come from?”

“Lightning brought him.”

“Who was Lightning?”

“Lightning-in-the-Forest. I don’t remember his real name; that’s what he was called in the stories.”

“What stories?”

“That he came to Asgard with his men to honor my mother. Svadi was his horse, but was very young and unruly then. Lightning was hunting in the woods one day, with his men, when they were killed by monsters. A dragon killed Lightning. All their horses were killed, too, and the dragon ate them. All but Svadi. He ran to my mother, wounded by the dragon and covered in sweat and blood, and she and Eir healed him.”

“Lightning was killed by a dragon? And all his men? Why did they all go together?”

“I think one man stayed behind.”

“What happened to that man? Can I talk to him?”

“He got sick and died not long after.”

“Hmmm…”

“Can I ask you questions, too?” asked Silver the ever-curious.

“Sure. What?”

“Are you an Avenger?”

“Yes…” drawn out slowly.

“What are you avenging? Sir Clint said that all of you are avenging something.”

“I was… I was a princess in Kievan Rus. My father was like Odin, the king of a small realm, and I his only heir. The ruler of the next kingdom had a son, Pavel Ivanovitch. (They were Christians in that kingdom.) He wanted to extend their realm by joining his with ours. Pavel wanted to marry me, but I did not like him. So he tried to force me. I slashed his face with my dagger and ran away. My father died in battle; the neighbors took my kingdom. I gathered up a sackful of rats—a big sack, with all kinds of rats, big ones and sick ones and pregnant ones—and I put all the rats in his granary. Then I left. I heard later from refugees that many people died of sickness and hunger in that kingdom.”

“And this is your opportunity to win your kingdom back?”

“To win a kingdom; it does not have to be my old one. Do you know what Pavel Ivanovitch said, after he recovered from his wounds? If I wanted to return, I would need to bring an army.” She smiled. “So I am bringing an army this time.”

“They follow Thor, not you.”

“It doesn’t matter. I have learned from the Avengers; one need not lead from the front to have one’s commands followed. Thor will rule; and I will advise Thor.” Her eyes narrowed. “But Prince Loki of Asgard might destabilize my plans. So choose: are you Tony’s servant, or my potential adversary?”

Natasha rose gracefully. “Think about it, and give me your answer later.”

…

Tony sent Silver ( _still Silver, dammit_ ) to tend to the horses while he talked to Lady Nat In the tent.

“Did you sort out your ancestry problems?” Tony asked.

“Not really. Loki thinks they both were the children of Odin and Frigga.”

“Is that possible?”

“Very unlikely, unless his timeline is wrong.”

“I can see being mistaken about your father, but how do you mistake your mother?” Tony said. “So whose child is Thor? Really?”

“Asgard’s. _Mine_.”

“Come on, Nat. Don’t you want to solve this mystery?”

Her face was cold. “No, I wish to protect my new kingdom from all threats. Including this one.”

She rose and went to Loki, Tony following, and grabbed the boy by his face. “Little prince of nowhere. Your brother loved you. He mourned you as he mourned his mother. But now he has moved on. You should do the same.”

“Why would I want Asgard?" Silver asked. "Only three people in the palace loved me—King Bor, Mother Frigga, and Thor. One is dead and two are far apart. Why should I choose a path that harms either?"

"Loyalty?" Nat suggested. 

“Besides them, to whom? Father Odin let me run wild ‘to see what I would become.’ And only those of the populace who supported the Ferghanis tolerated me. Most of those are dead. I do not wish to be nothing king of a nothing kingdom, my lady.”

“Then we are agreed,” Natasha said, “and you live.”

( _Wait a minute, what_? thought Tony, who had heard this last part.)

…

As she saddled her horse, Natasha pulled Silver aside again.

“Sir Tony has many enemies. Why do you suppose he rode with us? If you _ever_ need help, call on me before you visit Thor. On your life. Do you agree?”

“Yes, Lady Natasha.”

A hug for Tony, then she leaped into the saddle. Raising her voice: “Good. These are unsettled times. Be careful!”

A wave at them both, and she was off.

…

After Natasha left:

“She told me to choose.” Pensive boy.

“What? Servant or prince?”

“Yes.”

“But you _can’t_ choose not to be my servant,” Tony pointed out. “That’s my call, not yours.”

“I could … abdi..? abni..?”

“Abdicate? To whom? You can’t tell Thor, or he’ll know you’re alive. And you can’t abdicate in favor of anyone else.”

“So you must kill me.” Silver frowned.

“I made no such promise,” Tony said. Quickly added: “And I forbid you to kill yourself, on purpose or by accident. So we’ll just have to postpone the decision. Indefinitely.”

“Oh. Okay?”

Tony smiled until Silver smiled in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Lightning-in-the-Forest" is a rough translation of Farbauti (lightning) and Laufey (leafy forest) or Nal (nail-like, or pine needle forest). 
> 
> Pavel Ivanovitch is a made-up name, with no Marvel or myth attachments that I know of; I mention that they are Christians to explain why he uses a modern Russian name form. No offense to any Christians is meant.
> 
> And Ferghana is the land of "heavenly horses," admired by the Romans and Chinese, and imported in the 12th century (if not earlier) into Iberia. It was considered part of the Persian empire in antiquity.


	9. On the Road (Again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Loki (Silver) have left the rest of the Avengers, and are headed south for the winter.

“Now this country looks familiar,” Tony said as they rode in the cart. “We should be at the ford on the Danube in about a week, and it should be low water by then, so…”

Rounding a corner, they saw beneath the crown of yellowing trees another cart, and a man waving wildly. (A roofed city carriage, two spindly horses cropping already-cropped grass, a sooty fire; the middle-aged man in well-made clothes, poorly kept.) Tony drove the cart next to the camp, and stopped.

“What can we do for you?” he asked, lazily.

“Would you consider… traveling with us? We are on our way to our country estate, and my wife took ill; the rest of our caravan went on without us. We were told there are bandits, and would prefer not to travel alone.”

Tony looked over the site; just past the horses there was good grass (what kind of idiot won’t feed their horses while travelling?), sandy-floored space for another cart and a fire, nearby water… “We’ll stay here tonight,” he decided, “and you can go along with us in the morning.”

“Us?”

“I’m Tony; this is my servant, Silver.”

“I’m Augustus… er, August; my wife, Emilia, is in the cart.”

“Good to meet you, August.”

Silver barely paused for introductions, and started setting up camp: unharness the horses (and lead the filly), groom them, water them, stake them out in good hay; set up a fire ring, gather brush and start a fire; fetch water for dinner and washing…

“Boy,” came a shrill voice from near the carts, where a woman in silky blue clothing stood watching him. “Fetch me some water as well.”

Silver stood stock-still, as if evaluating an unknown animal for its edibility or threat potential. Finally he ignored her and came back to the fire ring.

Sharing some wine, August told Tony, “That servant is very disrespectful.”

“Well, he’s my servant, not everyone’s.”

“Could you tell him to take our orders as well? All our servants have gone ahead to our estate.”

“I’ll ask him.”

\--

“Silver, would you mind serving our neighbors as well? We’ll be travelling with them.”

Silver looked at him sideways. “You always have another reason.”

“Yeah,” said Tony. “I do. They’re a bit grand for their present station, don’t you think? I want to keep an eye on them. And it will give you a chance to learn some different manners. The more kinds of people you understand, the better you will prosper.”

“Very well, my Lord,” said Silver, dodging an elbow as he bowed.

\--

“He has to _ask_ his servant to serve us?” Emilia asked. “This is not a very strong master. Perhaps the boy is spoiled.”

“Probably,” said August. “But I am _confident_ he can learn his place.”

…

As long as the two wagons were close together, Silver’s shared duties were not too onerous: driving August’s (or was it Emilia’s?) cart, feeding and watching over five horses instead of three (and the two thin skittish horses started to calm down and eat better), making two fires at night (but sometimes Tony made his own), and hauling _lots_ of water (and sometimes Tony helped there, too, listening to Silver’s quiet information as they worked together). But on the fourth day, Emilia was slow in rising, the cart needed to be repacked for the downward slope ahead, and Tony was waved forward to scout the way. Once he was out of their view, Emilia announced, “Let’s camp here, today.”

With half the responsibilities, Silver’s workload should have been half as great. Instead, August informed him Silver must rearrange the load in the cart, Emilia told him he must hunt for and cook their meal, the horses must be driven off good grass into the dusty roadside (“They failed to work, why should they eat?”), water should be drawn and heated—“and more firewood!”—for the couple’s baths; and Silver was given a dry crust and bedded down outside with no blanket for his efforts.

In the morning: “Was it cold last night?” August asked. “Perhaps you should sleep with us tonight.”

“After a bath,” Emilia sniffed.

At noon, the horses, ravenous and thirsty, were harnessed without regard for their state, and August took the reins, sitting uncomfortably closely next to Silver on the driver’s bench. The sun had barely moved when they reached two overgrown wheel-tracks near a toppled milepost. “Here is where we turn,” August announced.

“Then I’ll depart here?” said Silver. The too-close man dropped the reins in order to grab his arm. “I think you should drive now,” August said. “See, the horses are nibbling at the trees. It’s not good for them. Best we move on.” With his hand locked on Loki’s.

“But they’re parched! They need water. I’ll just…” Silver smiled and twisted out of his grip, climbed down from the wagon and took a skin filled with water. Gave it to the horses in slow double handfuls, stalling.

“Hurry it up!” said August.

“If I do, they’ll colic,” said Silver, playing slow and stupid, listening for any hint of Tony or other help. Nothing.

Emilia opened the forward curtains and stuck her head out like a turtle from its shell. Sniffed. “At this rate, we’ll have to camp again before we get there,” she said.

“Yes, dear. The boy insists on watering the horses,” said August. “Hey, there! Time to move on!”

Loki/Silver dropped the wineskin, leaving it pointing down their trail. “Yes, sir,” and climbed back up.

…

That night, after the choice of a less-than-optimal campsite (in the woods there are insects everywhere, and each horse must be staked out at its own clearing, as there is none big enough for both of them), and even more punctilious demands than before (“Could you find the right herbs to scent our baths?”), Loki is tired and feeling spiteful. The air has been still and humid all day; perhaps there will be a breeze, but he can’t find it. Another, smaller and staler, dry crust for dinner, and Silver looks in vain for a dry spot in which to sleep.

August comes up behind him. “Aren’t you cold?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, I am. So is Emilia. You should warm our bed.”

“I beg your pardon?” He’s tired; so his inappropriate high-toned language is unintentional.

August is turning red. “Warm. Our. Bed.”

“With a fire?”

“With a clean”—August could sniff, too—“well-warmed, _naked_ boy. The bathwater is not yet cool.”

“Ah.”

…

While supposedly taking a bath, Loki (or maybe he’s _Tony’s_ Silver, the one who helped blow up the dam) builds a straw boy to put in the center of their bed, soaks its backside in the fragrant used bath water, and stuffs it with pungent moss. There: a warm naked (if scratchy) boy to share their bed. Then he plies the couple with wine (a last bottle casually looted from Tony’s cart: thank the gods that they did not snoop further, or take more deadly useful objects), helps one then the other to the makeshift lavatory, and leaves them at the dark cart to find their own way into bed. While Silver thumps inside the cart, pretends to drunkenly take off his clothes, then sets the moss on fire, carefully covering it with more wet straw. Sneaks out the front curtain as they come in the back.

“Our boy can’t hold his wine, it seems,” says Emilia, inside the cart.

“And he needs a haircut,” says August, maybe as he crouches down.

“Or even an all-over shave,” says Emilia. “I thought he didn’t have body hair yet.” A pause. “He’s still wet.”

“Or nervous,” says August.

Silence, then the moss starts to burn through the straw layer; and quietly walking away Silver hears: “What’s that smell?”

…

Near dawn: fitfully sleeping, Silver heard a horse’s loud breath, then the shuffle of quiet hooves. He climbed down from his tree in the dim light.

“Silver?” A whisper. Tony gave him a hand up as he climbed into the wagon. “What happened? How were your new masters?”

“They fed me with scraps and wanted to sleep with me. I left them a stinky straw man instead.”

“Are there any turnouts ahead? I can’t back the horses all the way to the main road.”

“Just the camp.” Silver glowered.

“Good,” said Tony. “Then I get to teach them not to take my stuff.” Encouraging the horses, he added, “You stay in the back and make sure no one takes anything else. I’ll handle the Augusti.”

…

And so at dawn, Tony is there, Stewpot and Kaboom still hitched, but noisily cropping the grass within their reach. Silver is presently hiding half-listening next to the dragon powder under Tony’s cot. August emerged from his own carriage, smudged and unkempt.

“Did Silver give you any trouble?” starts Tony as he climbs down from the cart, seeing the messy camp and ignoring the fact that they are far off course.

“Quite a scamp, your boy,” August says, smiling innocently. “He just needs proper discipline.”

“Is that so?” asks Tony, his face giving nothing away.

“Yes. Uh… you did say he is your slave? Not a relative?”

Tony nods.

“What do you think he is worth? I mean, we are far from any markets, but close to my estate; I’m sure we could work out a trade if you need a more muscular servant.”

“If I did so, you’d give the boy the discipline he needs?”

“You can rely on us!”

“You know his last master before me was murdered.” (Silver suddenly was _very_ attentive. _What_ was Tony telling them?)

“You didn’t say!” August said indignantly. “Why wasn’t he branded? Or crucified?”

“Suspicious circumstances. Nothing was ever proved.” Now Tony was smiling predatorily. “By the way, I’ve noticed some wine missing. Was that the boy also?”

“A killer and a thief!” Emilia had come up to join the conversation.

“Right. So if you fetch him, I can accompany you to your estate…”

“At this point, I believe I must withdraw my offer,” said August.

“Then hand him over and I’ll go,” Tony said. “Surely you kept him tied at night?”

“No…” said Emilia.

“You let my slave get away,” Tony said flatly.

“Do you think he is still around? Surely we could find him.”

“Oh, he’s far better in these woods than I am,” Tony said. “It’s safest to assume he’s gone. At least I hope he is; wouldn’t want him hanging around…. But since you lost him, how will you compensate me?”

“Compensate?” Emilia was breathing very rapidly. “We have one set of clothing each. We barely have food for this journey. We have no way to compensate you.”

“You said you have an estate.”

“Very run down,” said August. “We’re waiting for her son to leave the army so he may help us put it to rights.”

“No muscular servants?”

“None,” said Emilia, and started crying.

“You have two horses…”

“Without them,” she said, “we can’t get home. Please, sir,” and batted her lashes, “would a proud woman’s virtue serve to compensate? We have nothing else.”

Tony might have continued the increasingly embarrassing conversation except that Silver, unsuccessfully muting his laughter, suddenly sneezed. Tony ignored the sound, climbed back onto the cart, and wheeled the horses around, just clearing the camp site with the cart and the delicate-stepping filly. Nodding to the unhappy campers, he trotted the horses back the way he had come.

…

It rained the next two days, warmer than the season warranted, but thoroughly soaking Tony, Loki, and the mud-soaked, sliding horses. Maybe it was karmic justice for their jokes on their ex-fellow travelers, Tony suggested; but Silver pointed out the rain was probably worse where the couple had been left. Not that they didn’t deserve it, either…

“So,” said Tony, “what did you learn?”

“Other than the smell of burning soap?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What, wanna-be Romans this late in time? Remember, the Eastern (Byzantine) Roman empire was still going great guns, and styles would be slower to change in the suburbs of the empire. Augustus and his lady may have had reasons for mis-stating their past and intentions, like the Duke and the King in Huckleberry Finn (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn if you don't remember or haven't read this). But Tony is a bit too sophisticated to be taken in...


	10. Golyamo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Silver find a place to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder to my readers: Silver is Loki, yes? And Stewpot is Tony’s name for Svadilfari. His other horses are Kaboom and an anonymous filly.

It was one of that unending series of very rainy days (the rain had fortunately not yet raised the level of the Danube, so their fording had been merely wet and unpleasant, not dangerous). The road from the ford ran steeply up a hillside here, and even the combined might of Stewpot and Kaboom could not pull the wagon forward. They hauled, climbed a few feet forward, and then slid back; all the frustrating day.

Tony finally called an end to it, found a (marginally) drier spot under some trees, and started setting up camp. Such was the day—damp and miserable—that Silver even failed at his regular duty of making a campfire. They were cold and wet and reduced to tough jerky and soggy bread for dinner.

“I failed you,” Silver said.

“Hey, it’s wet. Things get wet. It happens,” Tony said, philosophically.

“What is my punishment to be?” Not looking at him.

“Hey. Hey! Look at Kaboom. Look at Stewpot.” (Both were muddy to the neck and sighing in relief to be out of harness, too tired yet to chew their hay.) “Look at their day. They failed, right? Suppose I whipped them. Kaboom would quit on me, and Stewpot would try to kill me. Now which of them are you like?”

“Umm…” Silver would rather not admit to his lethal tendencies (but he was inclined to be lethal, and both of them knew it).

“Right. So should I hit you? Whip you? Why? You tried, the horses tried, we all tried. The day sucked. This way, we try again tomorrow, no hard feelings. Okay?”

Finally, Tony was rewarded with another of Silver’s shy smiles.

“Right,” said Tony. “We’re a team. I may be foolish, but I don’t give knives to people I don’t trust.”

…

They were deep in the kingdom of the Bulgars when the first winter storm arrived. At the next town—“Is there any need for a blacksmith? No?”—they spent an overnight in an inn-half-stable, with Tony drinking the local beer (and inhaling information from the local drinkers), and Silver warm in the stable straw with Svadi, Kaboom, and the still-unnamed filly.

But the next town over, rumor had it, could use Tony’s services; so once the road had dried enough to continue, continue they did.

…

“Now listen. As we travel, I’ll probably ask you to be different people. Sometimes I’ll say you’re my son, or my nephew, or my cousin, or my apprentice, or my servant, or my slave. Can you play those parts?”

“Can you tell me the difference between them?” Silver asked.

“You’ve been a servant (and played a slave) already; for me, those aren’t too different, but in bigger establishments, some servants boss the slaves around. Apprenticeships are voluntary; I’m doing you a favor by teaching you, and you’re earning your education by working for me. You still do everything I tell you to.” Tony showed his teeth in a fake smile. “Relatives are a different story. The closer the relative, the more I direct your life. I control my son completely, my nephew by courtesy of my brother or sister or brother-in-law, and my cousin much more loosely. Cousins have the most leeway to give criticism.”

Silver laughed. “Then I choose to be your cousin.”

“No. Not in this town. You are my son. Your role is to respect me and obey me.”

Silver’s nose curled into a bad-smell expression. “Like Odin.”

“Right. And _my_ job is to bring you up in the manner in which you should grow. More like Bor. You told me he taught _all_ the kids, not just his kin, right?” And watched the boy slowly relax.

…

Golyamo’s smithy was a burned-out ruin, the smith himself long gone. Tony set up camp in a nearby stone byre; then scoured the hillsides with Silver in search of hard woods that could be burned to charcoal. He set up shop in the byre as well.

The houses of Golyamo had beam-ends with animal faces; Tony crafted similar faces in the handles of the tools he wrought. As these became desirable, he found more work adding the decorative faces to existing spoons, pokers, and shearing blades. He taught Silver decorative smithing, then how to work the black iron; but the boy did not yet have the needed muscles. So he mainly worked the bellows when high heat was needed. Tony babbled the formulas for various iron alloys: _this_ kind of charcoal, _this_ series of heatings and quenchings; and Silver learned.

…

One day, once they had the forge fire working, two boys—one dark-haired, one blond—showed up outside the stone building, where Silver was sorting wood for the various fires.

“You’re new,” said the blond (about his age and the more forward of the two).

“Yes,” said Silver, as he straightened from his task.

“I’m Tino. He’s Janos.” Janos was darker and taller, with a blockier build.

“I’m Silver.”

“That’s a strange name,” said Janos.

“As you said, we are new here.”

“Is that your dad?” Tino asked.

“Yes.”

“What’s he do?”

“He’s a smith. He uses fire to make metal things.”

“Are you a smith, too?”

Silver flushed. “I’m learning. My dad is teaching me how to forge metal.”

“Can we watch?” Tino asked. “We don’t have any chores right now.”

“Let me ask,” said Silver.

…

So Tino and Janos became Silver’s friends. The two boys were about Silver’s (guessed) age, and their fathers’ relative wealth meant that they could spend their time at the forge, learning to use the bellows, or even, as a special treat, to make wrought iron under Sir Tony’s tutelage. With three boys to help in the forge’s activities, there was even time for play, roughhousing and exploring the local environs (which Janos and Tino knew, of course). And there was time for stories: Tony’s tales of the Far East, Silver recounting Asgardian legends, the boys telling of local customs and local rumors.

One day Tino and Silver raided an orchard for its last golden yellow apples, hauling their loot home. Tino showed up at the forge the next day, red-faced and sorely unwilling to sit down. “It was for my own good,” he explained.

Later, Silver told Tony, “We stole some apples from Mistress Gina. Tino was hit for it.”

Tony was concentrating on creating a dragon face as he forged a metal rod. “Was it for a good reason?”

“The hitting?”

“The theft.”

“I suppose not. We didn’t need the apples, they were just tempting.”

“Well, don’t do it again,” Tony said.

“All right…” diffident guilty Silver.

“Temptations can also be traps,” Tony added. “In fact, they usually are. Want to be trapped?”

“No,” said Silver.

“Then think first. We need to be good neighbors to be welcome here. What would a good neighbor do?”

“Return the apples?”

“Good. Do that. Can you return all of them?”

“No, we ate some. Pay for them?”

“How? What with?”

Silver shrugged. He had no money of his own. “Work?”

“When you return the apples—which is _now_ —spend the rest of the day with Mistress Gina. Do any chore she asks of you, and figure out what she needs.”

…

Silver, with the bag of apples, told the other boys, “I have to go work now.”

…

At the end of the day, back from Mistress Gina’s, he told Tony: “I worked the rest of the day. I swept her house. I cut up apples for special bread. I cut vegetables for the stew.”

“And did you figure out anything she needs?”

“A new hook, over the fire. She had to put the pot on the coals, and things burned. My hand almost got burned.”

“Do you know what the hook should look like? How big?”

The boy nodded.

“Fine. You’re making it.”

“What?”

“I’ll help with the installation. But you’re making the hook for her.”

…

The next day, Janos and Tino could only watch while Silver made wrought-iron hooks, all by himself.

(“Can we help?” asked Tino.

“No, I have to do this by myself,” said Loki, proud of his responsibility.)

By the third try, Tony pronounced it adequate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are many towns in Bulgaria that are called, or were called, Golyamo “Something.” So I picked Golyamo as a generic Bulgarian town name. (Not to be confused with Gulmira, the town in the first Iron Man movie.)


	11. Springtime: Goat and Lion: I.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's May Day! And how the situation came to pass.

Now:

Silver crouched over, a large straw mask covering his face, with plaited horns and a little goat’s beard. He held his hands like paws as he danced: now a gamboling kid, now a protective nanny, now a lustful ram. Toward and away from the Maiden as they made their way toward the tall pole in the middle of the glen, streamers of flowers hanging from it.

…

Previously:

Came springtime, and the planting festival: Tradition dictated a May Maiden, personifying benevolent godhood, and a May Goat (a human masked with straw, with straw horns), to personify the unpredictable forces of Spring weather.

Thuja, Neya and Puja—the three elders—had asked Tony to lend his son to play the Goat. The role was simple—the Maiden (Neya’s daughter Eva) would go with the Goat to the maypole; then she would pull two ribbons _one_ way, and the Goat was to take the other two in his hands and pull the other way, both dancing around the pole until it was completely decorated. Then a Handsome Huntsman comes, “slays” the Goat with a wooden sword, and takes the Maiden by the hand; then all three disappear into the woods, where—well—anything could happen. Or so was the plot.

The next step was convincing the kid that he should play along.

(Both Tino and Janos had played the goat in the previous May Day celebrations. They hinted at a great trial, overcome: defeat, humiliation, then acceptance. But they would not tell of the particulars.)

“I don’t want to play the fool! And I _especially_ don’t want to be sacrificed!”

“Silver? It’s not a real sacrifice, okay? You just go along with the pretense. Hell, every mummer _yearns_ for a juicy dying scene.”

“Why are we doing this? Why did you agree?”

“Because it’s what good neighbors do. It’s about being part of the community. Otherwise, if we stay here, we’ll be outcasts.”

“Are we staying?”

“No.”

“Then why play along?”

“ _Never_ give your enemies advance warning of what you are going to do.”

“Have we enemies here?”

“Not yet.”

Enemies could arrive at any time; enemies could even arise here. Couldn’t the kid see that?

“I told them you are my son. Play the part, okay?”

“Yes,” said Loki. “I think I understand.”

…

_You never know when enemies might arise--_

It was quite an honorable warning, considering the circumstances. Sir Tony claimed the title father—as if he were the one who had left Loki to his own devices, to the street, instead of acknowledging him—and was now ready to slay him, symbolically or not. _Dance the fool, Silver_ , Tony said, _dance the Goat; let them think you will go down easily_. And trust your enemy-rich, accident-prone “father” to kill you.

“Yes,” Loki said to himself. “I understand.”

…

For his part, Tony having heard the details of the ritual, at first had decided that his fragile authority over Silver could be damaged if he let some other agency punish the boy. So he agreed to play the Handsome Huntsman. But privately…

…

Now:

There had been goats in Asgard, primarily raised for their milk; Silver proved an apt mime of goat behavior. From the uncertain bleat of a kid; to the stubborn maternalism of a nanny, determined to herd _her_ Maiden to safety; to a ram’s fatuous pride and determined intervention: Silver played these parts, alternating among them, until he and the Maiden arrived at the maypole.

“Shall we let the Maiden go?” Thuja, first elder, called; and the crowd: ”Yes!”

She wove a pair of flower-bedecked ribbons about the pole. Silver eased forwards and started, as a goat, to nibble on the flowers.

Another villager tried to drive him away from the pole; Silver bleated, ran circles around him (thus tying the rest of the ribbons), and snapped at another flower to general laughter. He dodged again, finally allowing third elder Puja to catch him with a rope around one leg.

“Shall we let the Goat go?” shouted Thuja. “Shall we allow him to make our harvests unpredictable, our flowers to fade, our straw to grow mold? What say you?”

“No!” shouted the villagers; and as Tony had had it explained to him, the next step was for the Handsome Huntsman (the village smith) to take a knife, “sacrifice” the Goat, and free the boy within; but Tony did not play it that way.

…

Then:

…privately, Tony had decided to _rewrite_ their ritual.

…

Now:

“Where is the smith?”

Wholly missing.

“Will someone else take his place?”

The second elder (Neya, the Maiden’s father) came forth with a big wooden knife; Silver the Goat bleated in fright.

Suddenly a very loud roar filled the air. Another straw-clad figure leaped at the maypole: a man in a lion mask, with a resplendent, sun-like, radiating mane, and a swishing straw tail.

“Do not harm my Goat!” the Lion shouted. “I will bring the sun, and he will bring the rain, and your crops will flourish.”

“Is this acceptable?” Thuja, first elder, asked the crowd.

“It hasn’t been done this way before,” said Neya, _sotto voce_ , while the people, laughing, yelled “Yes!”

Silver grabbed a last flower, then the Lion took his hand, and the hand of the Maiden as well, and forced the three into a bow. He then swatted at Silver’s rear and chased them into the woods, the flowers left behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Mayday ritual is very roughly based on the Kukeri ritual: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukeri.


	12. Springtime: Goat and Lion: II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the Mayday ritual.

In a nearby glade, the Lion told the Maiden, “Go!”

Eva left, a flash of quick brown legs below her skirt.

Tony took off the lion mask to Silver’s laughter. The boy took off his horned mask as well.

“And how was your Maiden?” Tony asked him.

Silver wrinkled his nose. “She was taller than me. And she smelled of onions.”

“Oh, well,” said Tony. “You should know: I changed the story.”

“Why?”

“Nobody gets to sacrifice you. You’re mine. Capiche?”

“Got it,” Silver replied.

…

The elders came to Tony that night, and he offered them tea and places to sit.

“Did you like my changes to the script? A little more drama, sure, but a big surprise and then a solid ending.”

“You said you would disciple the boy.” That was Thuja, the first elder.

“Didn’t need to.” Tony smirked. “He played his part perfectly, or did you notice?”

“Because he is a boy, and full of sin!” That was angry Puja, who usually didn’t talk.

 _Oh, it’s like that_. Tony started babbling to cover his thoughts. “Was it the apples? ‘Cos we already handled the thing with the apples…” Looked by chance at Neya, usually talkative, who was biting his lips in unhappy silence. Back to Puja: “Hey, if you’re against sin, why try to throw Neya’s daughter at me?”

Neya said quietly, not looking at him, “Eva would make you a good wife.”

 _I already have a wife_. Tony sipped his tea. “Thank you for your hospitality,” he said, much more slowly, “but I think it’s best if we be moving on. Clearly your ways are not our ways, and these misunderstandings will occur. Tino and Janos should be able to take over the forge.”

…

The next day Silver was _cringing_ whenever Tony looked his way: and that wouldn’t do. Tony grabbed him by one shoulder and pulled him away from the forge.

“Leave it to Janos and Tino,” he said, once they were out of earshot of the others; then looked Silver straight in the eye. Yep, cringing again. “What’s wrong?”

“When will you kill me?” Silver said, looking straight at him now, defiant.

“What?” Damn that ritual.

“You are replacing me, in the forge. And lions eat goats.”

Tony ran his sooty fingers though his hair, thinking. “Look. Remember when we came here? What’s our relationship?”

“I’m your son.”

“Right. So I’m your father.”

“Like Abraham?”

“Who – how did you learn…? Never mind. _Not_ like Abraham. _Not_ like Odin. Like Bor, remember? Did Bor kill you?” And wasn’t that a ridiculous question.

“No.”

Sometimes the kid was such a _gloomy_ little fucker. Tony risked: “Did he even hit you?”

“No.” Slightly cheerier. Good.

“Then why would I hit you, much less kill you?”

“Because I’m evil?”

Tony saw red; held his breath, let it out slowly until he could think again. Very softly asked, “Who told you that?”

“Tino’s father, and Janos’ father, and the village teacher, and the Augusts, and, and Odin, and …”

“Wait. Stop! Did I say you were evil?”

“No…”

“Mistress Gina, when you returned her apples, did she say you were evil?”

“No, she thanked me.”

Tony grabbed the kid with one arm around his shoulders, ruffled his hair with the other (yes, sooty) hand. “Here’s the thing. _Nobody_ starts out evil. Sometimes you are going to have to do evil things. Or I am. Sometimes one or both of us will make mistakes. It comes with the territory. You do something bad, _fix it_. You harm someone, make it up to him or her, not some God. If you can’t do that, make it up to the people around them. Got it?”

“Yes,” Silver said in his but-I’m-not-done-asking-questions voice.

“But?”

“Why are you teaching my friends all the forge tricks? To replace me?”

The arm around the shoulder was replaced with a full-body hug. Tony said quietly into the boy’s hair, “Because we’re leaving. You and I. Got it?”

“Capiche.” This time the voice was firm.

“Start packing.”

Tony let him go, stood up, and strode back into the forge. “Hey! How are you guys doing?”

…

A few days later, Tony and Silver harnessed the horses to their wagon, and left, heading north and west. The goat and lion straw masks swung at the back of the cart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It appears that Loki is learning the Christian Bible, but not in an organized way. Abraham, told by his God to sacrifice his son, was allowed to sacrifice a goat instead, so you can see Loki’s confusion.
> 
> This Bible quote (Genesis 8:21) may explain the villagers’ attitude: “(E)very inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.”


	13. Guess who you get to be this time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little incident on the road.

“Hey, Silver,” Tony said as they made their way west. “Guess who you get to be this time.”

“Your cousin?” They boy was already smiling.

“Nope. It’s a market town.”

“Your agent? Your young associate?”

“The main market is for slaves.”

“Oh.”

“Right. I need to get you in leg irons.”

“Am I for sale?” Tony _had_ let him be kidnapped, after all.

“No way in hell,” Tony said.

…

It was a town with new prosperity, surrounded by neighbors no longer prosperous. Men were coming by in a steady stream, asking for new shackles for new servants, and larger ones for the child-slaves who had grown out of (or, worse, _into_ ) their previous bonds. Loki was the salesman’s sample, wearing the proof of Tony’s work.

“Now I want you to watch what I’m doing,” Tony said out of the side of his mouth, “then tell me what I’m up to, and why.”

At dinner: “You’re not annealing the metal the same way.”

“Quite correct; these are curved pieces and need different treatment. Keep watching.”

The next night: “You are using a different composition of metal.”

Tony said, “Yep. Have you figures out the ‘why’ yet?”

“No.”

“Don’t just watch me. Watch everything.”

The next night:

Tony asked, “What did you see?”

Silver could describe in detail the three clients who had come by to pick up and pay for Tony’s work.

“Who else came by?”

“Uh, their slaves?”

Tony smiled. “Tell me about the slaves.”

“They were thin, and wearing rags.”

“What else?”

“They were not happy.”

“Exactly right! Now, my slave, what would it take to make you happy? More food, better clothes?”

“No.” Silver lifted one foot from the ground, dropped it so that the chain _clanked_. “I’d want my freedom.”

“Can we free them?” Tony asked, looking into the boy’s eyes. “Could we free today’s group?”

“We could kill their masters…?”

“And then run away fast, or be hanged ourselves. And tomorrow’s slaves are out of luck.”

“What then?” said Loki.

“It seems to me,” Tony said, “that the best way to do it would be to let the slaves free themselves long after we’re gone.”

“The annealing…” Loki started.

“...Yes?”

“The special metal…”

“Yep!” Tony said proudly. “Once winter comes, these chains will get a little crumbly. Well, a lot, actually. Come the first freeze, they’ll start to fall apart.” Tony _loved_ being clever. “Now tell me what else we have to do.”

“Leave town before winter!”

“Yes. And one thing more. It’s no good if the slaves are free, but starving. As long as this country is rich, _someone_ should pass the word that the slaves should store up extra provisions for the winter. Discretely.”

“ _Someone_?”

“Who better than another slave, eh?”

…

Once Tony had finished equipping every slave in town (his prices were so _reasonable_ if one took advantage of the group discounts), they were packed up and gone by the end of the week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bagatelle, a trifle; but I've been seriously stuck on this fiction (and planning two other ones) for months. Next chapter is longer, and I finally figured out how to get to the inevitable conclusion (which, SPOILER, will not be Frostiron) in a way that makes sense. Thanks for all your patience!


	14. Ruby silver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The problem with his special alloy was that it used up most of the odd metal stock in Tony’s possession."  
> Tony and Loki visit a mine.

The problem with his special alloy was that it used up most of the odd metal stock in Tony’s possession. Therefore, after conspicuously leaving in a general southeasterly direction, he circled the horses around the town and headed north. A month-long journey brought them to the _Erzgebirge_ , the Ore Mountains, where Tony could replenish his supply of rare metals.

_…_

_“_ Are those _dvergar_? Dwarves?”

“Nope. Miners,” Tony laughed.

One of the short blackened men looked at the goat mask, then at Loki.

“ _Kleines_ _Nickelschen_?”

“No, Heinrich, he’s _not_ a little devil. He just looks and acts like one. Now, do you have our tin ore?”

…

They spent the winter and early spring there. The mountains were cold, but the mines had a constant temperature, and the foundries ran very hot. Tony borrowed a foundry for his own use; sorted ore and refined his own special alloys. Loki stoked the fires, learned German from the miners’ children, and kept the place clean. When news came of a new seam of _stibium_ -rich ore, Tony sent him with the miners down into the mine, to learn how to extract the sparkling crystals.

The foundry had been like Tony’s blacksmithing shop, only larger and _much_ hotter; but the mine…

Heinrich and his crew found a special hat for him, his size, hard and made of boiled leather. It has a hatband, and in it went a candleholder and a tallow candle. “Now this candle is very important; we give you a pouch with spares. Don’t let it burn out, or you’ll be in the dark. Total dark. No stars, eh? And if it starts to flicker when it shouldn’t, or the light changes color, run back the way you came. Run! The air is no good there, you see?”

“I see,” said the boy, quiet and dark-eyed, always learning. (Like Tony in that; and they did not call Tony _sir_ , here: why was that?)

“This way,” said Heinrich.

…

It _must be_ the dwarves’ kingdom. A cave—he thought it was a cave—unassuming in the mountainside, which led to a tunnel beamed with rough-sawn wood, still lit by the sunlight behind them; which led to a large cavern. Loki’s eyes took in the torch-lit scene. Broad sooty men (all of them short, even by Tony’s standards) were carrying empty linen bags away, through more tunnels or up or down vertical wooden ladders, or were hauling back the bags, jammed with rough dark rocks, from the tunnels into the cavern for transport. A short brown horse patiently waited before a high-walled cart, in which the men dumped the filled sacks. Each man had a candle-holder jabbed into his hat.

The walls of the cavern were mostly dark, especially by the torches, but rough and sparkly in a few places. “Now look here,” Heinrich said. “Here’s your pick axe. You are looking for ore like this”—long steel spears, like sword blades welded together—“or like this”—a dark shiny rounded mass, like grapes pressed together. “Don’t breathe in the stuff when you dig it out; eventually it’s poisonous. You may see some of these”—deep red in the lamp-light, sparkling blocks of…

“Rubies?” Loki guessed.

“Ruby silver. Very valuable. Keep ‘em in a separate pouch, if you find any.” Heinrich moved to a light-colored section of the cavern wall. “Don’t bother with this stuff. It’s _quartz_ ” (he said it like a curse word), “worthless. And it’ll dull your pick. Watch.” Heinrich scraped the side of the pick-axe, not the sharp point, against the whitish rock, and a few sparks flew.

“What are those?” Sparkling clear things in a hole in the quartz. “Are they valuable?”

Heinrich laughed. “That’s _crystal_. Ice that got frozen for too long; now it won’t melt. If we find a big clear piece, we can sell it to the gem carvers; but otherwise it’s worthless, just pretty. Grab some sacks and let’s get going.”

Heinrich tucked some bags under his arm, took his candle-holder from his hat, and, pick-axe in hand, headed toward a rather short-ceilinged tunnel. Loki copied his gestures and followed. They had to stoop in the tunnel, with wood bracing around them and a gurgle of water flowing past their feet. The place smelled like damp earth. Heinrich’s candle wavered before him—no torches here—and the air grew more still as they progressed. Then the hint of a breeze from a niche in the side wall.

“Down here,” Heinrich pointed with his lamp, and then balanced no-handed as he climbed down another wooden ladder. “Step careful now.” Loki dropped his bags, took off his cap and carefully placed the candle-holder on it; dipped to pick things up, and carefully climbed down the ladder with one hand. The dark corridor at the bottom was taller than the entrance tunnel, and Loki soon caught up with Heinrich at its end.

“See here? There’s a crack to the outside world. Don’t let the breeze blow out your candle.” Heinrich’s own candle was now propped in the wall, with a little shield protecting it from the breeze. “Here’s how to light things while you dig. But now…” Heinrich took Loki’s candle-holder, and waved it at a shining patch of ceiling on the end wall. “See that? There’s your ore. Get as much as you can, leave the waste to one side of the tunnel, and if you find any ruby silvers, put them in this pouch, here.” Handing him a smooth suede bag. “I’ll be back with your dinner, later.”

Heinrich found a good spot for Loki’s candle, set it there, and put three more unused candles on a low projection of the wall nearby. Loki found footholds in the wall, and started digging upwards as Heinrich and his light retreated.

…

When Loki emerged, filthy and happy, he had two heavy bags of shining _stibium_ ore and half-a-dozen ruby silvers in his pouch. Heinrich was pleased, and gave him the smallest ruby silver as payment for the day. “Come on, boy, wash up and I’ll show you some of the things we’ve found in this mine.”

At the trough, Loki said, “When you met me, you called me a _nickel_?”

“Yes! But it was meant friendly. We’ve got _nickeln und kobolden_ —devils and gnomes—in the ore sometimes, and then we can’t sell it. Come here. See? Nickel is shiny and pink, and kobold is near as white as the silver—but it doesn’t tarnish. Good looking, both, but not so good for business. You, on the other hand, work like a devil and you’re pretty as the kobold ore. So Tony named you rightly, calling you Silver.”

“And who is Tony, to you?”

“He came by years ago, talking funny, and read some old scrolls about some uses for our products that we didn’t know. Used to be we’d throw out the _stibium_ ore; now we sell it for writing with and for ladies’ eye shadow. He found us uses for lots of things, just not for the nickel and the kobold. About as old as you are, when he came here. He comes by now and then, plays in the forge, makes new things and tells us stories of his travels. A good guy.”

_So: not a knight, not a prince, not someone who needed avenging. Why had he raided Asgard? Or freed some slaves? Sir Tony was a mystery._

…

“Look what Heinrich gave me.” That night, before supper.

“Not the way I heard it,” Tony said. “Let’s see what you _earned_.”

The stone was purple-red as wine; Loki held it up, and the candle-light shone red through it.

“Very nice. Now, don’t show it again, unless you need to.”

“Why?”

“Ruby silver isn’t stable. It will tarnish to silver, then black as your hair, if you keep it too long in sunlight.”

“Why is it valuable, then, if it fades away?”

“Why shouldn’t the miners have their red roses, like everyone else? It’s a hard life, otherwise.”

…

On the way south, the sky blue, the air full of birdsong and interesting scents, the horses shaggy and frisky, Loki finally asked, “Why didn’t Heinrich call you ‘sir’?”

“Huh?”

“You are _Sir_ Tony. He didn’t call you that.”

“He doesn’t know that part. I’m grateful you didn’t tell him.”

“But why?”

“Maybe ‘Sir Tony’ can’t be trusted. Maybe he’ll demand back taxes and special favors and to be treated like a prince. But ‘Tony’ can play at the forge, and discover useful things. Who would you rather have as a guest?”

“Oh,” said Loki, who was a prince (but had little idea what demands that meant he should make).

…

 **Author’s long note on mining and minerals** :

The mining scenes are based on Agricola’s _De Re Metallica_ (translated by Herbert Hoover, before he was US President), and on my experiences visiting various mines, though none in the Erzegebirge. (Mines are often wonderful places to visit.)

The Erzgebirge, on the German/Czech border, have been mined for tin since antiquity (about 2500 BCE, says [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore_Mountains)). The main tin ore there is cassiterite, tin oxide, but they have a wealth of other minerals and ores, including those for silver, uranium, cobalt, etc. The name _quartz_ seems to have come from a term for something worthless; and rock crystal was thought to be solid ice that had frozen too cold to ever melt. The elements nickel and cobalt are named for demonic contaminants in ore: _Kupfernickel_ , or the devil in the copper (see, e.g., why Satan is called Old Nick); cobalt for _kobold_ , a mine goblin. Heinrich shows Loki nickeline, nickel arsenide, and skutterudite, cobalt arsenide.

 _Stibium_ is antimony. Loki is told to go mine for stibnite (antimony sulfide) and native antimony and/or arsenic. The ruby silvers, proustite (silver arsenic sulfide) and pyrargyrite (silver antimony sulfide), decompose to silver then silver oxide in air and light; until they do, they are transparent and deep red and deep purplish red, respectively.

And one of my ore mineralogy teachers was named Heinrich.


	15. Sir Cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dismal town; Loki is growing up; Tony has impure thoughts (and no brain-to-mouth filter)

As they traveled west, and as Silver grew:

“This is my son, Silver.”

“… my apprentice, Silver.”

“… my assistant, Silver.”

“… my son.”

“… my associate.”

…

Loki’s voice was changing as he started a sudden growth spurt. He sounded funny as hell; and it would have been just that funny if Tony’s skinny I-guess-he’s-an-apprentice-now did not show signs of soon being taller than Tony, with no end in sight. At least now _both_ of them could be embarrassed by morning wood; although Loki’s, unpredictably, could come at any time. Tony taught him nonprovocative mantras: formulas for steel-making, capitals of unvisited countries, foreign alphabets; anything besides sex to think of so the kid wouldn’t be abashed in public.

“We’ll winter here.” It was a near-abandoned granary, with thick stone walls suitable for Tony’s forge. “But we’ve got rats. Go get a cat.”

A cat: Loki went into town, comfortable alone on the short road with his poniard and his purse; seeing first to his duty and then to the sights of the town. A prosperous craftsman’s apprentice, advertising his master’s services. But first:

The animal market had a shaded lean-to where the owner presided. Most of the lot held large animals: cattle and goats, pigs and donkeys, a few lean and aged horses. Nearer pens held chickens, ducks, and geese; lazy dogs lolled throughout the place.

“I seek a cat.”

“We have these.” In a basket, in the lean-to, a mother cat and six blue-eyed newborn kits; too many and too young. He needed a ratter. There was a cage hanging from a rafter in a dark corner; eyes as green as his gleamed.

“What’s this?”

“Oh. Witch cat. Do you have witches? We’ve had a raft of ‘em lately. You take a witch-cat, see, and you boil it alive; the broth protects you from witches.” The witch-cat had black fur, stiff with grime; its eyes were resigned, unacknowledging and indifferent to its fate.

“How much? With the cage?”

“Five pennies. Two more for the cage.”

“I’ll pay now. But I’ve more errands to run. Can you hold it for me for a few hours?”

“I can boil it for you while you wait.”

“No,” said Loki, paying for cat and cage with a ten-penny piece. “I’ll want it _alive_. Keep the change.”

…

“They kill black cats here,” Loki told Tony grumpily as the beast shared their roasted chicken. “Proof against witches. If we let this one loose, I’ll be lucky to buy it back again before it’s soup.”

“Then we’ll disguise it. I have just the thing; but wash it, first.”

“Sir Cat, I do apologize, but I must introduce you to water. Please refrain from the use of your claws.” Warm wet rags came away black as grease when Loki stroked the cat with them. Then Sir Cat must wash himself once Loki had finished. His fur shone gray, not black.

“Looks like he disguised himself,” Tony noted. “We’re none of us what we seem, eh?”

…

Tony has been doing not-much in the witch-frightened town except making tools and weapons for themselves; training Silver in the use of weapons and in courtesy; protecting their cat from witch-hunters; and getting stinking drunk.

…

Tony, after finding a calendar, gets _extraordinarily_ drunk. He’s sitting on the floor. Propped against a wall. “Hey, kid. Wait; maybe not so much a kid any more …”

Silver, with prickly seed pods in his hair, back from gathering yet more wood to make into charcoal or warmth, warily regards him. “… What?”

And Tony grabs his arm, _yanks_ him to his side. “You’re not cold?”

“No.”

“Hmpf. Some bedwarmer. ‘Member those Roman wannabes? Putting on airs and all?”

“Their skinny horses.”

“Yeah.” Tony gave him a narrow, slightly unfocused look from _very close_. “ Maybe they had the right idea.”

“ _Steal_ me? You already own me.”

“Bed you. You still a virgin? Three ways?” And waved, vaguely, with his other hand at Silver’s mouth crotch, ass.

“ _What_ are you asking?” In sudden arrogance; not Silver: Tony’s servant/slave, but Loki: Asgard’s lanky lost prince.

Wait. This was the prince Tony was raising for … something. _Not_ defiling. He “hmpf’ed” again through his nose, dropped the boy’s arm, and raised both hands in vague surrender. “Just remembered. ‘M a married man.”

“What??” Loki asked, confused; but Tony nodded off into sleep. In the morning, he did not recall any mention of the Roman couple, much less the rest, and Loki did not remind him.

…

Their identities were wearing thin; it seems no one _trusted_ Anton the smith or his lanky apprentice enough to give them work. (They had a devil with them, yes? A small one, disguised as a cat, but still…) So it was a relief when, in the mucky tail-end of winter, a stranger rode into the town asking for Lord Stark.

“Who?” asked Loki, in the town’s market out of idle curiosity.

“I seek the great engineer Hovarthson Stark.”

“We have a smith who _might_ answer to Hovarthson.”

“Take me to him, and there’s silver coin for you if he’s the right one.”

…

“So,” said Tony. “Describe this stranger.”

The man had been of middling age, and despite his smile his eyes were calculating. He wore homespun, but dyed a different color than the local clothiers could make. He rode a bay horse, unremarkable in color but with a smooth, shambling gait; and his harness, though weathered, was in good condition.

“And you conclude from this?”

“Not someone from the local region. Possibly someone you know.”

“Sounds about right,” Tony said. “Let’s talk with the fellow.”

…

The man, Richard de la Parque, had been one of Coulson’s associates, and had a job for Tony. Southwards, in the Alps, a church tower lacked its bronze bell, tossed away by an avalanche. Could Lord Stark, the renowned engineer, help the church put its bell into place?

“We shall see,” said Tony.

“We’re leaving?” asked Silver.

“Why are you here, anyway?” asked the stranger.

“They needed a smith, I needed a forge. Sometimes these things work out; other times…” Tony shrugged. “Just a bad fit, that’s all.”


	16. Archimedes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solving a new problem

Sharp mountain air; the hills still snow-capped, the river cold and powder-blue tinted; a scruff of trees, the chatter of magpies. Tony picked a wooded glade, left the wagon and filly there, camp ready to set up; went on with Richard and Loki ( _Silver? no, Loki_ ) on horseback around a concealing curve of the road, and into the village. The only permanent structures in the community were a large hall (the monastery, Richard explained) and a church, the latter still under construction.

Or, rather, reconstruction: brick-shaped stones were being gathered from the rubble at its base; a column of men like ants hauling each block along an exterior scaffold to the nearly complete tower. There was no obvious way to raise the large bronze bell, sitting nearby, back into its position.

Tony’s engineer’s heart plummeted. The problem wasn’t the bell; it was that they built the church in the wrong damned place in the pass. Come the next, inevitable avalanche, down the tower would go again. No chance they would move an already consecrated church, and Tony hated building anything that would be perceived as shoddy.

Still, he met with the monks—was that Gallagher? And whatever happened to the rest of their troop, anyway?—ate and listened to the exploits of the men he did not yet know, was offered (and refused) a room for the night. Loki walked and sat beside him, listening silently. Soon, two horses and their riders returned to the camp.

Silver (Loki was no servant) watered the horses, set up ground-cloth and tent, gathered wood and water, started the fire and the water to boil; gathered herbs by the waterside, and dried meat and vegetables from the cart, and started stew. Tony sat on a rock by the glacier-fed river; and thought. He was abstract and distant the rest of the night, and throughout the next day.

The following day (the second since they’d camped), Tony took a solo hike around the nearby slopes, then a solo ride into town to watch the men build, returning in the afternoon. Bored Loki and bored Sir Cat, the latter restricted by a harness and leash to remain in the tent, played at catch with a cloth ball filled with mint. Loki held the ball just _slightly_ beyond the reach of Sir Cat’s paws—or so he thought—and the beast stretched out two long arms and nailed him. Loki dropped the ball and licked at the criss-cross of claw marks on the back of his hand.

“Wash that in running water so it doesn’t get infected,” said Tony from the tent entrance, with a smile that had been absent so far this trip. “Then come with me.”

Tony had lost his previous reluctance and grown impatient. “C’mon, I found the perfect place.” He led the long-legged boy— _still_ a boy—to a bend in the river, with a wide view upstream and a log on which to sit, on a beach of gray ground-rock sand.

“Now what?” Loki asked.

“Now we look, and think.” A quiet pause, both getting restless, then Tony said, “Tell me about Archimedes.”

“Archimedes? Why?” Yep, the kid’s voice was still cracking sometimes.

“Just talk,” Tony said, and pulled a pair of long straight branches off a nearby stump.

“Well. He was an inventor?”

“Yep. Just like us. What did he invent?” Tony was peeling the bark off one of the sticks.

“Um, a way to lift water, and a method for telling lead from gold…”

“While running naked through the streets of Syracuse.” Tony grinned. “Anything else?”

“Um. He used the soldiers’ bronze shields as a mirror to blind the sailors in an attacking fleet?”

“Who were the enemy?” Tony asked quietly.

“The Romans?”

“Right. And what happened to him?”

“He was drawing ideas on the beach and a Roman soldier confronted him. He was rude so the soldier killed him.”

“Right. So what do we take from this?”

“Don’t be rude?” Loki asked.

“True, usually. Uh, not always, but around armed strangers it’s a good idea. What else?”

The boy looked at him blankly, finally asked: “What?”

Tony threw him one of the peeled sticks. “That if you want to come up with a good solution to an engineering problem, nothing beats having a surface to sketch on. In this case, a beach.”

“Oh!” said Loki. “So you’re figuring out how to put the bell in the tower?”

“Nope.” Tony grabbed his own stick, drew a line separating the two of them, extended it down to the water. “I’m gonna figure out how to keep the church from being run over by avalanches. _You’re_ gonna solve how to get the bell into the tower.”

…

Another blank look: Loki was _slow_ today. “How?”

Tony sketched a little church on the sand, in side view. “'Give me a level and a place to stand, and I’ll move the world.’ Archimedes said that.”

“But...”

“You don’t have a long enough lever, so you need a better place to stand.”

“Where should I stand then?”

Tony waved at a spot near, but above, the church. “About there, I think.”

“In the air??” Could Tony’s brightest (only) student be failing at this lesson? He waited.

Loki crouched down suddenly, grabbed his stick, started sketching on the ground. The kind-of-remembered walls of Asgard. And outside them: Large horses? Small elephants? “You built these.”

Oh. Tony got it. “Siege engines. Yeah.”

“Show me how.”

“I’ll show you what they really looked like; _you_ figure out how.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This version of Archimedes making a compound mirror from shields is compliant with results from testing by the Mythbusters.


	17. A place to stand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Uh, Eureka?"

The next day:

 _What would Archimedes do?_ Loki absently draws in the sand the scratch pattern from the back of his hand … stares at it. Draws it again, pulling the pattern wider, dragging deep in each set of three scratches at one end, shallower at the other; then drops broken twigs into the deep end of each set of three scars on the ground. _Imagine horses_. Imagine them pulling a trio of logs across three other timbers sunk in where the sand is the deepest. Now lash these three logs at right angles to the ones below them; now free the horses and hitch them to the three logs on the bottom; haul the set of six logs now up a ramp and away from the makeshift jig; load another three logs into the pit—no, make a set of _four_ pits, for three logs each, in a square pattern with each ramp leading the logs to rise over the logs in the next pit—and quickly a tower grows.

Tony is lining up pebbles in an arc shape, lost in his own thoughts while Loki builds his sets of twigs.

Loki clears his throat. “Uh, Eureka?”

“What,” says Tony, not yet looking up. “Are you naked?”

“No! I mean, I think I know how to build a tower. _Under_ the bell.”

“Let’s see,” Tony says, turning away from his arc of stones. Then “Yep,” as Loki explains. “That’ll do it.” He goes to the bucket he brought along, dips it in the river, pours water against the stones. Watches. “You got it, kid. Now what?”

…

 _Now_ _what_ meant convincing Gallagher, etc., that Loki is the one to listen to, not Tony. Tony started, then pulled back and had _Loki_ answer their questions: “We’re building a tower by digging holes?”—and let the boy explain. While he just smiled, and nodded. Finally he spoke up. “Yeah, you got the idea.” Tony backed off entirely after the first day of work, and retired to his little beach, to line up stones, pour water, and contemplate.

The logs are prepared and the horses are willing; the three smallest logs have been pried beneath the bell, and tied together as a raft; three logs more are waiting at right angles while Loki orders the horses to pull, the tower to begin to grow. The work begins, then Sven the one-legged carpenter proposes they use pegs to secure the log ropes, so the ropes are not worn by dragging beneath logs. Finally, many sets of three logs, pegs, and ropes later, the bell is at the height it belongs at the tower window. Three ropes, three pulleys, and men on the ground pull, then hold, at Loki’s command from the tower window. Sven fits the bell into place in its harness, then motions for Loki to cover his ears. The installed bell rings out in triumph. And Tony, along his beach, hears the pealing.

…

That evening the monks and laymen celebrate, the workers trying with their wild stories to get shy Loki to speak up and accept their thanks. Tony, at the high table, quietly gathered Gallagher and Richard. “I need your men.”

“Why? Is not the work accomplished?”

“If the tower is to survive future avalanches, we need to move the avalanche path.”

“How?”

“Rocks, and men. I’ve planned the diversion path, but we need to move lots of rocks.”

“The men hoped for a rest.”

“Yeah, but: how much time did it take to put the bell in place? How much did you expect it to take? I think we’ve got a time window, here.”

Gallagher sighed. “All right.”

“Not done yet,” Tony said. “In exchange for planning and supervising this, I have a few conditions.”

Richard asked, “Conditions? For work you want done?”

“You want it done too, don’t deny it. _And_ we have the time to do it. _And_ nobody else could do it if I don’t help you. So?”

“Name your conditions,” Gallagher said.

“Oh, they’re not bad. First, Loki is the one who moved the bell. He gets the credit, not me. I don’t need it, I didn’t earn it, and I don’t want it.”

“What else?”

“Second, you teach him Latin. He can read and write, but he needs familiarity with the Church usage and with modern pronunciation. I want him to be proficient.”

“Isn’t he rather old?” Richard asked.

“That boy has a mind like a whip,” Tony said. “He often surprises me.”

“We can do both these things, then. Any other conditions?”

“No. You have the time until I’m done with your avalanche chute. Agreeable?”

“Yes,” said Gallagher. “Yes,” said Richard.

“Good,” said Tony, clapping a hand on each of their shoulders. “Let’s give everyone tomorrow off, and start the next day. I’ll leave it to you to tell the men.”

…

As the stone berm grows, men and horses and sledges carving glacial ridges into new shapes, Gallagher teaches Loki in the mornings until he can recite an entire Latin Mass from memory. The carpenter Sven One-Leg is a Northman who has forsworn the Red Thor for the White Christ; Loki does not mention his own Thor, but learns from him in the afternoons to use hammer and chisel to make designs in wood. The carpentry team builds him a rope safety harness, and one afternoon, Sven spotting him while everyone else is away, piling up stones, Loki climbs to the church tower’s top with his finished boards. Signing his work, not with a name (which one would he use?), but with a visual pun carved into the beams just below the tower’s roof: a running frieze of …

“Rabbits?” asked Tony that evening, confused.

“Young hares,” Loki corrected. “ _Leverets_.”

“Ah,” said Tony. “Small levers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Richard de la Parque is of course Richard Parker, who will name his son Peter...


	18. Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coming to the end; of course there will be an epilogue.

Pensive in Lorraine:

Springtime, and there was no need for ironmongery at the moment; Tony was idly reading through some Arabic manuscripts just come from Marseilles; Silver was teaching Sir Cat tricks (or the cat was toying with his expectations: both were equally likely); and outside the window, the bay filly (surely a mare by now) was pacing her paddock, trying to catch old Stewpot’s eye. _Ah, yes, springtime_.

As far as Tony was concerned, Silver had finished his apprenticeship with his work on the Austrian bell tower. The boy’s ideas were as productive as his, and he could see them through to completion. His Latin was now good enough for reading texts and making himself understood; and he had an ear for languages anyway, picking up local intonations in no time. Come the fall, he would send his prodigy off to Lombardy, where the notion of higher education had been introduced: some new thing called _college_. But for now…

“Silver!” catching both the boy’s and the cat’s attention. “What would you like to do next?”

“I’m fine,” said the boy uncertainly; the scope of Tony’s question could be anything from “ _Shall we visit the inn for supper?_ ” to “ _Shall we go to China or Africa next?_ ” “Are we leaving this town?”

“No, I mean, long term: What do you want to do with your life? Who do you want to be?” Foolish Tony, to start this line of discussion without wine at hand. “You’re wasted as an apprentice. It’s time you master a craft or a position.”

“What are my choices? Smith, armorer, scribe? Maker of straw men?”

Tony said, “You’re thinking too small. You can be anything you want to be.”

“And if I want to be king of Asgard?” He was back to watching the cat, swinging the weighted string for it to bat at.

“That bird has already flown, kid, and Aunty Natasha is guarding the nest. Give it up, Silver.”

The boy stood up. “Wine?”

“Sure.” And gave Tony another chance to look at him. Tall, dark-haired, green-eyed, slender and sharp-boned; but he never caught catarrhs and his lungs were good. He seemed immune to the cold. Still, by this time surely he would be growing a first, furry mustache? There was no sign of it. “How old are you, anyway?” Tony asked, as Silver brought two cups with red wine.

“Don’t you know better than I?” Back to sitting cross-legged on the floor. The cat took a sniff at the wine cup, and walked away.

 _I should_ , thought Tony, _if I remembered what Eir and Natasha said_.. but … he didn’t. “What time of year were you born?”

“Thor at the start of golden fall, me at the end of winter.” Silver (Loki) recited.

“Right. So you need a birthday. _And_ a present. _And_ a project for the summer.”

“I do?”

“Yep. On your feet, we’re going outside.”

 

Once they were outdoors, Tony took a deep breath of spring air and watched the horses for a while. Silver, as usual, copied him. Tony finally spoke up: “What do you see?”

“Boredom; flirtation?”

“I see a mare that needs a job.”

“Hmm. Do you want a foal this year?” Leave it to Silver to derail his planned speech.

“Is Stewpot the mare’s father?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then not this year.” Tony cleared his throat. “So. Anyway. You’ll need a horse. She’s yours. You train her, you name her.”

“Mine?”

“Yep. Go distract her.”

A tall boy walking into the paddock, making whooping noises to attract the (ex-)filly’s attention. And hopefully not noticing that this first wedge would inevitably split him from Tony’s side.

…

“She have a name yet?” Tony’s been waiting for the boy and the mare; Silver rides her every day with reins and no saddle, disappears with a sack lunch into the woods or the hills, comes back usually sweaty with a much calmer horse. Today the mare is muddy up to her belly, and Silver up to mid-chest; but the boy carries a stalk of gaudy flowers and wears a grin.

“We got caught in a bog, but she stayed calm and let me fetch these,” Silver said. “I was thinking of naming her for this flower.”

“The lady’s slipper?”

“Perfect! I can call her Lady, for short.” Silver dismounted, and started crooning to the mare. “Lady, Laaadyyyyy…”

“Make sure her legs aren’t too warm,” Tony said. “Get the two of you cleaned up, and we’ll have dinner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I chose the more modern name Lorraine rather than the more historically accurate Lotharingia. And, yes, I gender-swapped Sleipnir! The Slippery One became Lady Slipper.


	19. Epilogues told in vignettes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And a cliff-hanger…

And so Loki goes off to Lombardy for schooling, coming back in the summer.

The first year:

“What are you learning?”

“Poetry and epic drama; reasoning and geometry; we are promised the chance to learn medicine, later.”

“Stay away from dead bodies.”

“Because they smell?”

“Because you don’t know where they’ve been. They can still poison you.”

…

Loki storms: “You do not treat me as the Prince I am!”

Tony: “I don’t treat you like a servant either. What’s your point?”

…

The second year:

“What are you learning?”

“Medicine and the law.”

“Don’t trust the law.”

“Because it varies from place to place?”

“Because it is created by men and can be ignored by men as well.”

“Yes, master.”

“Brat.”

Loki turned serious. “Why did you never emancipate me? The other students are free men; I must constantly show proof at the school gates that I am not a runaway slave. It’s humiliating.”

“You’re learning the law? Look up this: _Prior Claim_. That means that if anyone else wants your sorry carcass, they have to go through me first.”

“And if someone wants _your_ sorry carcass?”

“Then you’ll come save me.” Tony smiled. “Right?”

…

They are walking in the marketplace when Tony points out a comely lass. “Does she appeal to you?”

A shrug. “Not really.”

“Which woman does your heart fancy, then?”

“If she exists, I have yet to meet her,” says the servant/son/prince/scholar pedantically.

“But you fancy someone?”

“I suppose,” the no-longer-a-boy said, then bit into a ripe fruit.

Tony courteously waited for Silver to swallow. “Who?”

A direct, green look over the green apple. “You.”

“Ain’t gonna happen,” Tony said with a nervous laugh. “I’m already married.”

“You’ve said.”

“But she was taken away from me.”

_Was this the act Tony needed avenged?_ Loki said slowly, “Can she be rescued?”

“I think so.”

“Then let’s.”

“Not yet,” Tony said. “Finish your studies, then we can go.”

…

One last task before Loki returns to college: Tony asks to see his (somewhat tarnished) ruby silver crystal. Once it is out of the pouch, Tony tosses it in the air and catches it with the same hand.

“You willing to sell this?”

“To you?”

“Yeah.”

“For how much?”

Tony grinned. “I’ll trade you a slave for it.”

Heartbreaking tall boy: Loki’s eyes go wide and green. Tony sighs. “It’s called manumission. We’ll go into town and sign some documents; then _you_ belong to _you_.”

…

The next year, his education finally completed, Loki returned to the house in Lorraine. He’d carefully chosen a nearby camping place the night before; curried his mare Lady this morning, put away his travelling and graduation clothes, and pulled out his best to wear: green hose, green leather boots chased in gold, white linen shirt with blackwork, green overtunic and trunks, all slashed and frilled and edged in gold in high medieval style. Plus a green felt cap with a long cock pheasant’s tail feather. Hoping to show off to his old master: _Look what I’ve accomplished without you_!

He even, Gods help him, carried a lute, and strummed it as he rode, guiding the mare with his knees. To the estate (slightly gone to weed). To the house. The _deserted_ house, with its windows open and front door ajar.

“Hello?”

A faint echo from within.

“My lord?”

Sir Cat, considerably skinnier than last year, roused itself from a patch of sunlight in the yard and meowed uncertainly.

“Tony? Anthony?”

Loki alit, dropped his reins, still carried the silly lute by its throat at he ran through the open door. No-one home. Cat-patterns in the dust. Sir Tony’s travel chest was missing; so (he checked later) were the cart and the other horses. Sir Cat dogged his steps, rubbing against him as he searched for clues. A note? Anything?

The front room and Tony’s room were empty of furniture. Silver’s pallet was still in his old room, the covers missing with the exception of a linen towel that had been roughly made into a cat-bed. (That was not beyond Sir Cat’s abilities.) Loki tore the rooms apart. All the chests: empty. The hearth: cold, unused, rained upon. Tony’s extensive library, books and parchment, his alchemical equipment and supplies: gone. Even the pewter and silver plates were missing. There was no food in the house; however, the heavy earthenware pottery remained, including the wine jars. And while most of the smaller candles had been devoured by mice, a few larger ones still had usable sections.

“We’ll have more time to explore this mystery tomorrow,” he told the cat. “For now, let’s find some food.” He peeled out of his unnecessary (and now dusty) finery, down to hose and boots and the linen shirt; outside, he removed his quiver and bow from Lady’s pack, strung the bow, and walked out to the overgrown meadow. When he returned, he cooked the little hare on an outdoor fire; and shared it with the appreciative cat.

That evening, he tilted a wine jar, and proceeded to get very drunk. The gathered kindling and herbs crackled, burning in the newly cleaned fireplace; Sir Cat gnawed at the strings on his purse.

Before his last journey to school, Tony had given him this purse, filled with gold, and said in a satisfied voice, “There. Now I’ve given you all the tools you need to be whoever you want.”

Loki looked back and wondered: _But who will I become, and who—and where—is he?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued in _The Journeyman Prince, and La Chanson de Sieur Tony_ ; which I may not start soon since the muses of three other multipart fics have tugged at my coatsleeves in the meantime.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Gallagher of the Shieldsmen is the fellow playing _Galaga_ in the _Avengers_ movie.


End file.
